The Affair

This is probably way too personal a question for people to share honest answers with me, a perfect stranger, throwing such a question into the internet world. However, I have to ask. This musical comitradegy Romance and Cigarettes has me wondering...

More and more in books, on film, and on t.v. I see over and over and over again - married men. cheating. Married men. Having affairs. Why? Is this a truth? An infallible truth? All men cheat? Is that really so? Am I naive to think, to hope, to believe otherwise?



So I am wondering a few things -

1) has your husband ever cheated on you? are you still together?

2) have you cheated? are you still together?

3) have you ever been the other woman? and if yes, have you then been cheated on and did you react differently?

Now, I am not dismissing the fact that women, too, have their affairs. Because they do. However, if I could somehow run a statistical search to find out how many movies and/or books feature womens' affairs, I'm sure that number would be drastically lower than the mens' affairs numbers.

WTF!?@#?$ (female rant)

There are pads for thongs...

There are PADS for THONGS......need I say anything more? Okay yes, I will say more. (i wish this picture showed how SLIM they are and how TINY the box they come in is. I saw it on a random C.V.S. stop)

When I am having my monthly visit from Aunt Flo, or the crimson tide, or my period - or how about moon cycle, the curse, bloody hell, wearing red shoes, whatever you feel good using to name your menstrual cycle (go here for some more fun names) - I usually am not thinking hm, how am I going to wear a pad AND that thong that goes up my ass and barely covers my girls even when I'm not bloated and feeling like all I want to do is sleep?

Thanks tampax and all you other pad creating companies for thinking of women's needs in the creation of this oddity. Ladies, I could be wrong. Maybe I am the only woman out here who doesn't wear thongs ESPECIALLY when I am bleeding. Are there times where you wished you'd had a thong pad? Even if I were going to a wedding in a really nice dress, I'd still opt for full underwear coverage and a regular tampon. I just can't think of a time where this absurdity would be necessary for me.

Share your thoughts...if there's still anyone out there.

Hiatus

This week-end I got lost inside a ferocious turmoil of anxiety. That is all I can say as an excuse for the lapse in my posting. It left me wondering if I needed professional help. There are a few friends out there I call on in these situations, I like to call them “Life Coaches,” and according to them – 1) I’m not crazy and 2) I don’t need counseling, but if I want to seek help, I should.

I wanted this last week of increased anxiety to be caused by something other than me. The thought that I could be this crazy and insecure just didn’t fit into the picture of me I have in my head. The easiest scapegoat is birth control. Many women experience violent mood swings and I thought this may be what was happening to me. I called my doctor to ask about hormone levels and if I should switch brands of pills. To my chagrin, the birth control I take is the best one I could be on. The dose of estrogen and progesterone are lower than any other brand. And I’ve been on one form of the same pill for the last year (a set of pills under the brand ‘Love Lite.’ yea, it’s ok to laugh at that). I did a quick mental search of how many times in the past year I thought something in my body was different due to a “switch in my birth control” – more times than I’ll admit to. Maybe this was what I really needed to hear – nothing but me was making me crazy for the last week.

As I hung up the phone, I felt oddly better. There was no cause to search anywhere outside of myself for the answer; the answer was in me somewhere. Finally my rationale stepped back into office and I wrote a quick list assessment of what was actually happening in my life to see if the events would correlate to how I was feeling. Step by step I wrote out what had been making me feel insecure and this really helped. Through my writing I was better able to see the actual timeline of events clearer and even moments where I overlooked a small step that may have stopped my anxiety earlier. End result of exercise – Erikka was over reacting in response to assumptions she made, not hard facts or reality. Crises averted - I’m not too crazy to be saved. Just high strung and prone to fly off the handle at things I make up. Good to know about myself.

Part of this plague started in response to Jason going through his own funk this past week (and it still may be on going). Jason is an introvert. I am an extrovert. We communicate very differently, but we are willing to work and listen to each other, so most time our communication is beneficial. This week, Jason had been even more introverted than usual though he told me why. My extroverted self took this admission and tried to run wild with it – how can I fix it, what can I do for him, how is he feeling today, he should be talking more about this, etc…Tackling an introvert’s problems from an extrovert’s perspective just doesn’t work, which was leading me to more internal opposition and putting more distance between he and I. This on top of my anxiety was a recipe for disaster.

After speaking on the phone to the nurse, the fog of anxiety cleared from my head. I saw both issues as separate – my anxiety and Jason’s having a bad week – and how they were affecting each other. First I wrote out my assessment of actual events and next I did some Google searching on improving communication, living and loving an introvert, and other related materials. It was not until an hour later I sat back from my computer and felt satisfied. From that moment on, I focused on my work projects and the anxiety took the back seat. (forever!...one can only hope) For the past week I had taken no actions to help myself out of my position. The feelings alone had consumed me. With the two, small steps of writing the list and reading ways I could try to improve communication, I was freed. This gave me a small glimpse into the world of people who are severely depressed or anxious. I can see better how people might not get out of the mist in order to act on their behalf. I feel fortunate to have gained more compassion for others, and for myself, through this last week.

Present Moment. Beautiful Moment

I’m not sure how some people do it – live their lives day to day without stress, uncertainty or conflict. The people who do not doubt themselves or go through difficult growing pains. They seem ever confident and sure of what they do and say, meeting each situation head on as it comes. (or are they just good at hiding that other more shadowy part…?) I seem to be constantly changing and evolving and learning about myself, even more so now that I am involved closely with another human being.

Last night I went through a total growing pain. Instead of reacting to the situation that was then currently unfolding, I was reacting to a drama of my making. Displaced feelings were heaped and heaped some more on to this moment, disfiguring myself and morphing the situation into no semblance of what was really going on. The little girl inside me who always gets what she wants and always wants the bright, shiny, awesome anything could not believe she was being denied. Told NO. And had no justifiable answer or reason or argument to change this No to a Yes. (and in the end had to admit, she had no RIGHT to try to make it a Yes) I just could not accept it. So I started taking out my old baggage to see if I could fit this into any of it.

Baggage comes in more shapes and sizes than I realized. Some people lay theirs out, plain for anyone to see because if they’ve got the biggest sized roller bag, how are you going to hide that?!? Depression, anxiety, trust issues, sexual dysfunction. Others have carry-ons - issues harder to see and probably issues they have been working to resolve, so kind of have a grasp on them. And then still more, there’s the stuff in your purse you’ve forgotten is even in there. The stuff squished down at the bottom, almost a part of the purse now. I think this is some of the baggage I pulled out last night.

Only in an intimate relation to someone else can I see this little clutter I didn’t notice before. Not only do I have to learn to tame my tongue and kill with kindness, but I have to learn to respond to the here and now. Not to the here and now as influenced by this similar episode that happened five years ago with my brother’s friend’s cousin Tom. No. To the here and now. To the new situation that arises from being with someone completely separate and different from all those other times.

Is this possible? Could I see without a colored lens, just a clear pane? First, it involves the same step one from taming my tongue – waiting. Secondly, in this waiting, I’ll be able to see my response and eventually understand what is informing it. Which will lead to the most important step of all, step three -“cleaning out my purse.” From learning how and why I respond to situations in certain ways, I can learn NOT to do that anymore. To put those old feelings aside, restate the present situation to myself, and live it. Be in the present moment.

The Whirlwind

My friend called the emotional upheaval that precedes her period "the time my body cries because it is not pregnant." More and more, I have to agree. Not because I conciously want to be pregnant, no no no, but because I have to honor the cycle my body goes through and will continue to go through until a) I get pregnant or b) menopause.

The week before my period, the urge to cry is at times irresistable. It could be a tv commercial for starving children in Africa I've seen twenty times; a blog about a mother's pride in her son's winning a speech contest after years of stuttering; or simply me thinking about a poignant memory. Whatever the case, at least once, I break down sobbing. If I cried more, my body would probably luv it - rejoicing in its sadness and despair at once again being an empty incubator. Somehow I hold on, rein in the emotions that want to consume me, and just go to bed early. Eat some chocolate. Give in to other cravings.

Walking down the street a while back, I heard a girl, who looked like she was in college, ask her similar looking girlfriend, "Have you ever felt irrationally angry?" YES! my inner self screamed. Yes! She could have been talking about the schizophrenia she was diagnosed with years ago, but what I heard was the echo of my own misguided, premenstrual anger. For not only does my body cry for its empty womb, it also rages at the world and anyone in it for the tiniest of infractions. Someone could walk by me, without a glance at me or even the slightest breeze from their passing ruffling my air space bubble, and I will glare at them and inwardly curse them and their future lineage for ever having walked by me like they just did. I find myself on the constant defense, and aggressive beyond measure (and I mean in a slightly psycho way, not in the "oh, tame her, wild beast" sort of way). (and I probably need some psychiatric work around my aggressiveness anyway because I notice I am not always aggressive in constructive ways...but this is a blog about me and bleeding damn it)

My mother used to "blame" a lot of stuff on her period and I would scoff at her, thinking she was a bold-faced liar. At the time I was in high school and my period was virtually unnoticeable. No mood swings even. Now, 10 years later, my body and its chemical make up must have gone through some major over hauls because I empathize with my mother's long ago sentiments. You were right Mom, it WAS your period that made you scream in a fit of rage at me, as soon as you walked in the door from work, because, gasp, I was on the phone. It WAS your period making you cry for three nights in a row on the phone with cousin Linda as you talked about people long dead. It WAS your period that influenced you to eat a bag of popcorn, then some chips, then a little chocolate. I was just too young then to be initiated into the world you were revealing to me.
Or too scared of the possibility that I too might one day gorge on popcorn, eat chips, and then pass out with my clothes on at 9:30pm only to have Jason have to undress me and put my limp almost lifeless body to bed.

Starlette Pyschosis

I do not even know why I am wasting time to write this...or why I even care...wait, yes I do. Men seem to think Jessica Simpson is HOT, like, blazing hot. I feel this is such a bizarre and unrealistic standard for ANY MAN to hold as a definition of hotness. If hotness = fake, then we've got a winner here.

In this picture, I feel the over done affects are captured in their most fake light. Those boobs canNOT be real. And she looks like a transvestite. Well, that's giving her too much credit. Transvestites can make smooth transitions from one sex to the other sometimes, but she looks like she has the face of a man!Ok, enough bashing and on to some real effects of seeing pictures like this one.

Effect One -

Jessica and her parts may be real, but she's only as real as her money affords her, i.e. personal trainers, beautifully made clothes, great food, maybe plastic surgery, etc...Money is not everything, but it certainly can help one maintain a certain kind of lifestyle that not everyone has access to. Some young girls will see pictures like this and long to look like that and will use what means they have at their disposal to do so, i.e. stealing clothes they can't afford, not eating, eating and puking, over excerising, plastic surgery, etc...

Effect Two -

Jessica's hair color, make up styles, and clothes choice change as frequently as her moods probably do. If Jessica hosted some important awards show, I can only imagine the number of 'costume changes' she'd undergo. This chameleon quality has a bad side with one almost good disclaimer. The bad side, women are seeing someone who is NEVER HAPPY WITH HOW SHE LOOKS, WHO SHE IS. She is seeking out happiness through physical manipulation of her outward appearence.Women will combat this with the almost good disclaimer of - but I feel better about myself when I change up my look. This is only because we are taught to associate that good feeling with looking "pretty." And I'm sorry ladies, I don't think we're the ones defining pretty most of the time. As we get older, I think we stop trying to fit the norm of beauty and start being more who we are, but up until about ages...18 - 21, women are highly influenced by internalized images and definitions of beauty they have accrued over time.

Effect Three -

This is for Jessica, to give her and other women like her the benefit of the doubt. It must be so hard to look like this all the time. To maintain the perfect hair, make-up, expression, and wardrobe and constantly be scrutinized about it by over a billion people world wide (or even in a small town for those undiscovered beauties). When we see the 'Jessica at the beach' photos or the 'Jessica at the shopping market' photos where she doesn't look so hot, do we admire her then? Is she still the hottest woman, guys? Does she feel good seeing her hung over self on the cover of magazines? Probably not, forcing her to maintain this image of being put together from head to toe as often as possible. I'm sure high power executive women can relate.

Erikka, what's the point? Why go on and on about being pretty and looking nice? Is it wrong to want to dress up and feel good about yourself?Of course it is not wrong.But it's time that more women engage in conversation about what is beauty to US, some self examination of why we do what we do, and to make the conscious choices of when, why, how, and where we do what we do for beauty's sake.

ps. To Read - The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolfe. Made me a bit of an angry femi-Nazi for awhile when I read it. Now that has subsided and left me armed with the facts to combat consumer culture oppression, yo.

pps. obviously I am under the influence of beauty as well, since I was the one looking at Yahoo pictures of celebs at some costume party...what can I say, I'm a sucker for beautiful women in beautiful dresses....However, read the ps above. Knowledge sets me a little more free from falsehoods.