Tag Archives: Survival

This Is Why I Don’t Like Being Hugged.

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This is not a new phenom for me. It’s been this way since… probably before middle school. Because, it was never just a hug. It was political. Or sexual. Or forced. Or unwanted. Or fake. But worse than that, for me, it pretty much always turned into being sick. And besides all that, I’m tall, so whoever is hugging me feels the need to reach up and get the crook of their arm around my neck and drag me down to their level! Or curl their shoulder cap up under my throat, strangling me.

Hugging, to me, is VERY INTIMATE. Yes, I needed to shout that. I don’t care for this “touchy, feely” part of society I’m apparently a part of. A lot of it seems so forced, so fake. Like it’s just what we do now. Even in primate packs, physical affection/grooming is reserved to members that are known to each other, comfortable with each other.

I say, “NO!”

As a member of a 12-step group, I would consistently sneak in through the kitchen at the meeting room, rather than endure the gauntlet of “Greeter” hugs that awaited me should I go through the front doors. And it always turned into a competition of who could grab me before I protested. “BUT WE LOVE YOU!” Like somehow if you just exposed me to the same uncomfortable behavior I would give up and accept. Capitulate. Just go with the flow. Resistance is futile.

My Western Civ teacher in college told us how he thought we shouldn’t say “I love you” too much. His belief was that by saying it over and over and over, at any time, for any reason, diminished its meaning. I kinda agree. On the flipside, I don’t think you should be stingy with saying “I love you” to those you really DO love. Especially children. They do need to hear it, and when you say it, you need to look in their eyes and mean it. I feel the same way about hugging.

And then there are the conversations that people had about my dislike of hugging.

“Oh, she’ll learn, one day.”

“It may take a long time, until she likes herself more.”

“When she sees what she’s missing.”

As an adult, I make sure that I get permission if by some crack in the cosmos I feel like hugging at that particular moment. Even I am struck by sentimental thoughts sometimes. At a party at our house one Christmas, my friend and her family were saying goodnight, and I leaned down to her oldest, to get on his level (who must have been 10 or 11 at the time), said how glad I was that he had come, and could I give him a hug? He immediately said “No!” and I said, “Fair enough! Would it be OK to shake your hand then?” And he gave a little smile, and we shook.

This is MY body. No one else’s. I have never had autonomy over it, never felt comfortable to say “no.” Didn’t feel I ever had the right to not let someone touch me, or put me on their knee, pick me up, stroke my hair, “you’re such a pretty little girl!”

As if that makes it OK. Oh, I’m pretty! OK, then, I guess I am just an object for you to do with as you wish.

Maybe then, pal. Now, it’s over my dead fucking body.

When I hug you, I really mean it. If I hug you, it’s real. Like my husband’s hugs. Pure magic. But they are borne out of trust, respect, love, consideration, and time. They are intimate.

Last week, someone hugged me (I couldn’t cut it off at the pass) and held on. It was nice, fine, they told me they missed me, etc., and then let go. Then ten seconds later, mentioned, “I’m not feeling great tonight.”

Fuck. Literally, just fuck. Cue up 36 hours later, my nose is stuffed, throat scratchy and coughing, headache.

FIVE DAYS OF THAT CRAP. For one ten-second hug.

I ask you, is it really worth it? To me, it is not. I know you like me. You care about me. Then hold out your hands. Chances are, I’ll let you take my hands. Squeeze them. Look into my eyes and tell me what you have to tell me, and I’ll return the sentiment. We can smile, maybe I can touch your upper arm gently, or you can touch mine.

And then, if it’s cold and flu season, I can go wash my hands. Please don’t take it personally.

My Arizona Road Trip

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I took a day off of work on Friday to drive to Prescott, Arizona for a women’s conference in the pines. Anyone who knows me knows I’m a big driver. My parents and I used to drive on vacations every summer (mostly because my mum was terrified to fly), but also my parents thought it was important that I got to see so much of the country, and I actually started to look forward to it every year. So I thought nothing of driving 6 hours to get to another state to see some friends and be high up in the Pines to be without TV or any other media for a couple of days.

As usual, it started with the 134 to the 210, with a quick detour to the 57 and on to the 10. This would be my highway for the next 233 miles. Once I got past Palm Springs, it was all new to me. I had never taken the 10 E any farther than that. Thankfully there wasn’t a lot of traffic and I was able to put the cruise control on and enjoy the scenery without having to worry about people around me too much. It was hot, so I had to turn the A/C up a notch – I don’t like air blowing directly on my face – my next car is going to have those nifty cooling/heating seats, I don’t care what the cost is!!

There were a lot of places I started to pass that I’d heard of, most notably the Salton Sea. I remember the movie with Val Kilmer and thought of it as this exotic place, like the Dead Sea, that had some miraculous power to heal or something. That was until I read in the paper that the Salton Sea is so toxic and full of sulfur, millions of fish regularly turn up dead on the shores when the wind blows across it. And also that it has a huge Meth problem. Not that exotic.

Once past Indio and Coachella, I settled in for the drive. It’s a two-lane highway and I found myself playing a pass-and-move game with another car – he would pass me and move in the the slow lane ahead of me, I would catch up and do the same – this went on for about 40 minutes. The landscape started to shift; the earth turned a coral color and it was really barren and flat. For some reason it looked like huge planks of salmon with dill trees sparsely stuck in them. The wind made impressions like the sections on a filet. Weird image I know but it really did.

I had never been to Arizona before so I didn’t know what to expect. I thought it would be desert and sand, with not a lot of vegetation. When I crossed the state line, the town of Blythe was verdant and lush – there was a suspension bridge across a huge wash that was brimming with water. The vegetation was darker than California’s, especially on the mountainside.

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I switched over to the 60 and it really got rural. RV parks popped up everywhere, no trees for shade, just vast acres of land with these white and metal trailers dotting the landscape. It was hot. There was lots of scrap metal and other items strewn about in front of houses and businesses – like it was too hot to get it to where they really wanted to bring it. I kept going, even though I needed to stop and stretch and get some gas. A sign said, “You are now leaving Hope behind.” I “hoped” it was just the name of the town and not a fact. I kept going.

The 71 was next; more flat landscape, although now there were those typical-shaped mountains in the distance. Not as pointy, more flat and red. The cactus growing there all seemed to be giving me the finger, which seemed rude to me, how did they ever expect visitors with such a welcome?

I finally stopped for gas in Aguila. It had just rained, poured in fact, and the air was heavy and thick with wetness. People were just starting to come back out on the streets. Gas was $2.99 a gallon, so much cheaper than California! There was a feeling I got from everyone around, like they were trapped in this town, like cats poised to jump into any vehicle and see where it took them. I paid for my gas and hurried back to the highway. It got hotter.

The road was so flat the heat caused mirages. I could see maybe 200 ft ahead of me, that was it. The heat sat there on the road, fat-bellied and corpulent, shimmering the air above the road so violently that I couldn’t tell which way the road turned till I was almost there. It was a bit like “the Twilight Zone.” I wished I had someone I was driving with to talk to, to break the tension and laugh a little. But it was just me and the CD collection.

I pushed the cruise control to eighty and turned my “Gomez” CD on. I needed to hear some happy music to counteract the chilliness I felt on driving alone. I kept on going down the 71 till I got to the 89 and turned North towards the mountains. The clouds came back and covered the sun enough so that it wasn’t as toasty in the car. A few fat drops of rain spattered on to my windscreen and I turned the wipers on and off quickly. For some reason I started to smile, at last relaxing a little and really being humbled by the beauty of the landscape and having some time off to see it. I turned the air conditioner off and opened up the sunroof – instantly my car was filled with moist, warm air and the smell of pinon. I took my hair clip out and let my locks swirl about in the wind. It must have looked a sight as the pressure from the sunroof being open made all of my hair stand on end and get sucked out the roof! It felt amazing, like a massage from tiny fingers.

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I got to the base of the mountain on the way to Prescott and prepared for the drive up to my destination. I was a little worried about my ears as my vertigo was not completely gone, but I took it easy on the accelerator and started up. It was not too winding at the beginning, and I was really glad it was paved. Each direction was on a different part of the mountain, so no chance of running into another car that was careening down the hill and coming round the corner at you.

It was getting a little claustrophobic now, the road wound round and snaked back and forth, the pines were enormous and created a canopy above, and the sides of the mountain were solid rock and really close to the edge of the road. Thank goodness there were look-outs every few miles – I made use of them to pull over, get my dizziness and nausea under control and then get back driving. Motion sickness only ever happens when I’m a passenger, so this is all new to me, and I’ll tell ya, I don’t like it one bit. Haven’t tried any other method of transportation but I’m hoping I don’t get the symptoms then too. Vertigo has changed a lot in my life.

Prescott was waiting at the top, and I felt relieved that I was almost there. My back was aching from all the sitting and my legs were starting to twitch and jump from lack of exercise. The town was nestled in tall trees and had all the entertainment offerings of a much larger city. They even had two Wal-Marts – a fact I found disturbing in that it would be nicer to see more community-oriented mom-and-pop outfits than chains – especially chains that were so underhandedly dangerous to America as a whole. But I digress and that’s a subject for another blog.

Copper Canyon Road carried me up to the camp where we’d be till Sunday. The roads were unpaved and pocked with canyons where the wash had eroded away the earth, and I had to really slow down to make sure my little Mazda didn’t bottom out going across them.

It was so quiet and so beautiful when I got to the upper lodge, I just stopped and sat on the ground. The clouds were roiling across the sky, in every shade of grey imaginable, looking like big handfuls of minty cotton candy; there were birds screeching in the trees and darting through the sky, and small animals ran from corner to corner, checking the new arrival out and perhaps hoping for some food.

My two days in Arizona were so relaxing, so fulfilling, and truthfully I did nothing! I can’t remember the last time I laid in big Adirondack rocking chair and let my imagination tell me what the clouds were. I became so aware of the absence of noise, and acutely aware of sound. There truly is a difference. Even the screech of a mountain cat in the dawn wasn’t frightening, it was more exciting and almost brought tears to my eyes.

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I left on Sunday with the thunder clapping and the huge raindrops hitting my car and a heart that was so much lighter than when I got there. I decided to try the shortcut down to the 89 that I had noticed on MapQuest and headed out Copper Canyon Road the opposite direction than when I arrived.

Bad decision. The rain was causing fast washes across the roads, and I was terrified my car was going to get stuck. I put the gear into low and tried not to brake too much, as when I did, the road skittered out from underneath me and made the car fishtail as the tires clung on the dirt roads.

I kept going, and going, and going down the mountain. There weren’t any road names anywhere and no where else to go, so I just kept on going. I prayed that the road didn’t dead end, as I knew there was no way I was going to be able to get back up the mountain with the road as slick as it was. I came upon a truck ahead of me, and flashed my lights to him to let him know I wanted him to pull over. My stomach stopped flipping and I relaxed a little as I pulled up to his driver’s side window. His license plate said Texas, and he was as reserved of strangers as I know a lot of Texans are.

I asked him where the 87 was, confusing the highway numbers. He said, “you mean the 89?” I said, yes, the one that hooks up with the 60 – totally forgetting the connector 71. He looked confused and said, “Where are you trying to get, what’s the name?” Los Angeles, I said, and I might as well have said Mars from the reaction he gave me. “You missed that I think,” he said. No kidding, I thought. “How the hell’d ya end up here?” Too long a story. He told me to keep going down this road and it would t-stop at the 89. He took off ahead of me and I kept him in sight, barreling down after him, afraid to lose the humanity I’d found in all this wilderness.

I came upon a religious family – not sure what they were, but they were dressed plainly, maybe Hutterites or Menonites, but they smiled and waved as I passed through their small town. “Skull Valley” was painted on the side of a building, and I panicked ridiculously and thought, Oh geez, it’s “Deliverance” and I’m the one with the pretty mouth. Los Angeles has never felt like “home” to me, but I was so desperate to blink my eyes and be there right then.

Finally, the highway came into sight. I actually started to cry as I took off towards the way I knew would lead me to home. I’m better with markers than directions, and being so happy on the way up here, I didn’t really take into account ones that would help me on the way back. It wasn’t till I saw the on-ramp to the 10 E that I really felt calm again, knowing I was only a few hours from a hot shower and soft bed.

Moral of the story: although there is something to be said about traveling alone and the peace and divinity you can experience by yourself, road trips are a little more fun when you have someone to share your insanity and panic with. And in cannibalistic Deliverance situations, there’s a 50/50 chance they’ll pick your passenger and send you on your way!

The Inside Job, or Bird With French Fry

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Indeed!  I think that happiness is a choice. Sure, there are circumstances that would challenge even the hardiest of souls, but that feeling of oneness with the universe, the rush of feeling good hormones, why wouldn’t you choose that on a daily basis if you could?

I’ve been getting these prompts from the Daily Prompt, on subjects to write about.  Truthfully, I haven’t felt much like writing these last few weeks.  There’s been a lot going on and I could not focus enough to really say what I wanted.  Unfortunately, I am not one to just put a few lines together and publish.  I like to have a good discussion on whatever topic is buzzing in my head.

So, why happiness as a topic?  There’s already been so much written about happiness, how to obtain it, how to nurture it, medicate to reach it… but it really is elusive.  It’s also an inside job.  Nothing you can buy, sell, eat, or do will create it (although a well-mad apple fritter… comes pretty darn close).  It’s about searching within to express it.  Things start falling into place when you are humble and grateful, and willing to learn.

I am a firm believer that we are not in control of anything in our lives, but our own reaction to it.  We can pray for something not to happen, or to happen, we can think about how we want our lives to be, and then try to manipulate it to happen that way, but really it is not up to us.  The greatest thing I have learned about the quest for happiness is that you have to be completely divested from the outcome.

I applied for a job where I am now, because someone else thought I would be really good at it.  I’m happy where I am now and wasn’t really looking to make a change.  But I did it because I respect the person who told me I’d be good for it.  What did I have to lose?  I made a decision with my Higher Power that whatever the outcome, I’d go along with it as the correct one.  Since I didn’t have any interest in the outcome, I was free to just be myself and answer the interview questions honestly and let my personality and experience come through, instead of worrying about the answers and second-guessing myself into wondering what the correct answer was that would get me the job.

Well, I got the job.

I was as surprised as anyone that in 2½ years here, I’ve been promoted, and extremely well-compensated.  The last company I was with, I was there for 10 years, and hadn’t had a raise or a bump in position in 6 years.  Not even a cost of living bump. And yet I was afraid to let go of the “tenure” I had there, and the perks of working there.  I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Something happens when you’re not afraid to be happy.  You’re happy. And while some think that focusing on what you have and being grateful for it will do nothing but keep you at that level, I believe that being grateful every single day for what you have in your life keeps you open for more good things to happen.

Now, I am not saying that “bad” things will never happen, only that with a change in attitude and gratitude, they don’t seem as awful as they once did, and you can move forward from them a lot sooner than if you let it get to you. Last night, I nearly (probably) died.  I’m certain that would have been the outcome. I was at a t-intersection, made my stop, and was continuing on to make a left turn, when a truck ran the stop sign, at about 50 mph. I literally almost blacked out from the anticipation of the crash, but somehow, managed to slam on the brakes and honk.  The other driver didn’t even try to look like, “Oops! Sorry about that!” or anything showing that it was unintentional.  He just didn’t give a shit. Meanwhile, I’ve got tears streaming down my face, my hands are shaking, and the driver of another car came up to me and asked if I was OK.  I was. Shaken, but OK. Years ago, I would have ruminated on this whole experience for weeks!  Brought it up, chewed on the cud for a while, swallowed it, and then brought it up again just to make sure I’d gotten all I could out of the experience, and repeated. Last night, instead, I went home, hugged my husband, kissed my Pug, related what happened, thanked my guardian angels, and went about preparing dinner. Then I got into gratitude for my wonderful home, my loving friends, the great weather, etc… I just didn’t let it go any further. I did not let it occupy any more of my time because there just isn’t that kind of time.  I would rather spend it on those aforementioned things that are important.

So for today, just make a choice.  Be happy.  Even if the laundry’s not done, your boss is a jerk, you don’t have time for lunch, the dog just peed on the floor…whatever.  Choose to not be angry, and reactive.  Choose instead to laugh (inside or out) at the circumstance and move on.  Don’t give it a moment’s more thought.  Choose to spend your energy on things you have control over. Your reaction. Your helpfulness. Your smile.

I’m telling you, sometimes it IS just that easy.  And if not, well…

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Kind of.  For now, anyway.

The Lazy Consumers

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I’m a hypocrite! That just flashed across my mind this morning as I was on my soapbox about the plastic bag ban in LA county. I was so glad that it passed and that now, people will have to pay $0.10 for a paper bag or bring their own. I got into a discussion with someone about all the selfish, consumer-driven trash that we are overwhelming our planet with. And there was a comment about how kids are not stepping up to the plate after finally being taught environmental science in the school curriculum. Or rather, how they are not picking up the mantle. Because they are constantly bombarded with messages about how to be cool, and most of that stems from having to have the latest gadget or clothing or the next disposable “whatever” in their teenage lives.

And then I went online to search for a single-serve pod coffee maker.

It hit me right across the forehead – I’m just as bad! I complain about consumerism, useless gadgets, people not being able to have a human conversation and social interaction, and I go off and do the same thing. It’s difficult to be that self-denialistic. That’s not even a word. But I don’t care.

I think of my friend, Ann, who is tireless in her causes. She worked so hard in getting awareness out about the vote to ban the plastic bags – she went to rallies, sent announcements through Facebook, always has a green message in her e-mails to you – she really and truly believes she can make a difference. And she does, in every single small way, every day, she is thinking about how to leave a better planet.  She is what I think would be called an ascetic. She doesn’t allow herself many conveniences or extraneous frills. She donated her car for a tax write-off and attends a lot of the rallies that she goes to by bus or other public transportation (which in Los Angeles is no small feat).

But, back to me and my selfish hypocrisy. I find it fascinating that since the dawn of the industrial revolution, we have come up with machines to “make our life easier.” They take away our work and leave us more time for “relaxing” and having more time for our families (but we really don’t spend that time with them). In the meantime, we get fatter, lazier, and more spiritually unfulfilled. Our manufacturing is mostly now done in China by young children with the cheapest of materials and the shoddiest standards that can be gotten away with. But it only costs $1.49 at WalMart, and that’s what it’s all about. So we can have more “stuff” that we want, even if it only lasts a year, or less, and is made out of man-made materials instead of natural fibers, so we can dispose of it when it starts to fray or lose its shape or pill up into little balls.  Then it can sit in landfills for a thousand or so years, leaching toxins into our soils and aquifers.

We have gone from a nation that respected, even revered, craftsmanship in all its forms – construction of homes, sewing, knitting, cooking, making furniture – a nation that once took pride in what it produced. Now, we’ve become lazy consumers. Yes, we consume a shitload of the world’s resources because we have such great wealth. But we are lazy. Not just in body, but in mind. We want the easy way out. We don’t want to have to think, or puzzle it out, or come up with great ideas (some still do, but they are a rarity, and looked on as “retro”). We want our machines to do it for us.  We have forgotten the feeling of happy exhaustion from a task well done, the aching muscles, the endorphins (now we go to the gym for that). The sense of accomplishment and pride at making something with our own hands.

There are a few inventions that are seminal – the washing machine – the refrigerator – I won’t say dryer because I remember as a kid my mum hanging out the wash on an outside rack – there was a smell that you couldn’t bottle into Downy and a feeling that no tumbler could impart on the clothes. That’s one of my points – we try to make these things that are already out there – the clothes on the drying rack – let’s invent Downy so it smells just like it. But it doesn’t. The scents in nature that are out there and so elusive – a rainshower (that smell of hot wet concrete in the summer, you know the smell don’t you?); a forest; an ocean shore; we try to invent facsimiles of this so we can have it all the time. Well, maybe we weren’t meant to have it all the time. Maybe the scents and experiences should only be experienced once in a while, or once in a lifetime even. My ex used to take me to his family’s cabin in northern Michigan in the summer. There was this amazing scent that was there – cherries, trees, earth, water, fire. Once you were there you got used to it and couldn’t discern the smell from just what you were breathing, but when you came home and unpacked, you were there again as your clothes released the scent of Traverse City, and you were instantly transported back. I have only smelled that smell one other time since. It grabbed me, stopped me in my tracks, and brought tears to my eyes. It conjured up the good memories I had when I went there. It was fleeting, and I wanted more. But I knew that the one whiff I got would have to tide me over.

Smell is the strongest sense we have to trigger memory, and we want these olfactory reminders all the time, so we desperately try to bring them back. So we have plug-ins, disappearing gels, ozone-killing aerosols to try and bring them back to us. At the cost of putting petroleum-laced chemicals in our homes. And loosing hormones (including photoestrogens that mess up reproductive organs and health), that we ingest that scramble our signals and confuse our body’s fine-tuned systems. But, at least it smells “good,” right?

Thank God we don’t have to smell our own humanity. We cover up everything that makes us human, in our quest to be better than human. Godlike. Surely, a spiritual being doesn’t stink, right? God doesn’t smell like sweat or musk or hard work. We coat our pits with aluminum and take the chance of Alzheimer’s later in life rather than smell human. We douse our pulse points with chemicals that smell like something else rather than the unique pheromones we all give off. We light a Yankee candle or spray lavender in the bathroom rather than let anyone think our shit stinks. It’s a toilet, right? Isn’t is supposed to smell a little?  I’d prefer that if you wanted to disguise where you’d been… just light a match, please!

We take away every single thing that makes us human, that designates us as animal (and I mean animal in the Latin term, “being that breathes”).

I think that we are all spiritual beings having a human experience. That our spirit has been plopped down into this “animus” and we are just trying to figure out how to be human. It’s not always fun.  It’s messy, fraught with sounds and smells that are uniquely us.  Probably why we’re such bad communicators too. Why can’t you read my mind? Well, maybe in the spiritual world you don’t have to, and we forget that.

The burping, the farting, the sweating, the crying, the vomiting, the sneezing… vive le humanity.

Hormones & Hostages – A Love Story

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I have recently found a whole new wellspring of empathy for men. Hard to believe, yes I know, but I actually feel badly when I see them dealing with something so foreign to them as “PMS.” Or for you European readers, “PMT.”

A good friend of mine had the fortune (or misfortune?) to grow up the only brother of three older sisters. While he turned into a man strong in his own right, he is so in tune with women on so many other levels, it is a bit frightening. Most men panic at those three little letters; you can see their eyes darting left and right and the light sheen of sweat suddenly appear on their upper lip… it’s fight or flight at its best! You can actually see and hear their mouth go dry and the smell the gears turning as they rack their brains trying to come up with the right answer to any of the loaded questions that seem to just beg to fly out of our mouths at those hormonal times. Not him. He had it perfectly under control, with no sense of capitulation, nor arrogance, when he smiled knowingly, empathetically, and touched your shoulder – lightly, as he knew how sensitive to touch we are – and said, “I love you.” And you knew he really meant it, wasn’t just saying it to allay your anger, fear, sadness, or any of the other emotions that come flying at you. Or even to get himself out of the bear’s den. He just knew, and he meant it. Then he would go about his own work, not ignoring you, but leaving you alone like you wanted (or did you?). It was uncanny. There was no comeback for that.

I’ve recently started living with someone, and it’s been well over five years since I’ve even had a roommate. As the tell-tale mood swing started to happen, I was like a werewolf frantically trying to hide from the full moon. “If I don’t SEE the moon, perhaps I won’t change!” It didn’t matter; I became withdrawn, sulky, prone to crying jags. I could be in denial all I wanted; I was in the throes of a really good bout of PMS. The bad thing is I’m so in love with this man that the thought of barking at him and hurting him makes me want to overdose on Nyquil and wake up in a week so he doesn’t have to bear the brunt. It’s really exhausting not to be sarcastic! He says the most innocuous things, like, “Oh, wow, Shannon Doherty is really pretty!” while watching re-runs of “SO Graham Norton” on TV and I want to dive over the coffee table and slap his eyes out of his head. How DARE you look at her!! Just because I’m bloated and pimply, is that any reason to be so CRUEL? How COULD you!

Well, thank goodness I’m able to reign myself in and manage a polite, “hmmm” to his off-the-cuff remark. He has no idea. And it’s so funny, I’m angry, emotional, “don’t touch me!” but the thing I really want is for you to just hold me, even though I can’t stand the touch right now. And a special thanks to all those helpful people who say, “drinking 8 glasses of water daily may help with the symptoms of PMS.” Wow. Thank you. Such pithy platitudes from the wrapper of a Kotex pad. “Get more exercise” and “eat more fruits and vegetables at this time” are such a hoot to hear too. Hmmm… OK, great, thank you very much. Let me tell you how it is, shall I? I KNOW that the frickin’ fruits and vegetables would be better for me than the Kettle Chips and Hershey’s Special Dark. I do! Can you not understand that’s like asking a heroin addict going through withdrawals and needing a fix so badly, to shoot up with powdered sugar and expect the same results? I’m sitting here staring at a luscious, ripe nectarine on my desk, and all my thoughts are just running back to the rippled, crunchy salty spicy WHAM of the potato chips I want. I can taste it now – the salt, the starch, that satisfying CRUNCH as it’s masticated on my back teeth – I can feel my anxiety level decrease, my mood elevate, my eyes glaze over as my blood sugar rises and the she-wolf retreats back to my subconscious, till the next time.

Men, let me bring you in on a little secret. This shit is real. Don’t let anyone tell you differently. We’re not drama queens trying to get attention or do it on purpose to punish you, or anything of the like. You know those times when you’re so exhausted that lying down on your bed, and sleep is almost upon you, you can feel its tendrils tugging at your subconscious, and then you shake your whole body, like you were falling and wake up? That’s what it’s like, awake. I’m just blissfully going along my day, and the bottom falls out of it. I feel 180 degrees differently than I did just a few minutes ago. That in itself is enough to depress me even more – the fact that I can be a hostage to my hormones as badly as you can. And I can’t do a thing about it.

If I want a bowl of ice cream, or a chocolate bar, or whatever my crazy mind is telling me would make me feel better, for the love of Mike (and George, and Bob, and Harry), don’t tell me I don’t need it, or that a walk would be better for me. You’re singing to the choir. Deep down, I know that’s true, but come on, better chocolate than your balls retreating up into your body in defense of my bloodcurdling, laser-tinged stare and stony silence that would follow your innocent little quip. If you love me, tell me you’re going on a walk and would love my company. That is going to have more success than anything you might throw out there.