Vagina jokes aren't funny. Period.

So I haven’t been writing  many blog posts because my computer broke, but this week I didn’t write any blog posts because I was too pissed off to write.

And what, you ask, happened to piss me off to such an extent?

Well, now, that’s the fun part. Because nothing happened. Nothing at all. Nada.

Unless you count THAT THING.

That thing that happens once a month. That thing that turns me, within seconds, into a stark raving mad specimen of humanity – a walking nutjob.

I’m fine. And then OMG I’M NOT.

That thing that makes me want to punch strangers in the throat for chewing too loudly, cry, scream, and eat all simple carbohydrates in a five-mile radius. That thing that makes me question the meaning of life while weeping at a car commercial and screaming at my roommate's son to STOP MAKING NOISE.

Oh yeah. You know what I’m talking about. They call it “PMS.”

For the record, I think that is the stupidest name IN THE WORLD for such a thing.

I have some better ones. More descriptive. Accurate.

Such as: “Pissed off, Maniacal and Starving” or “Pending Marital Separation” or “Psychotic, Melodramatic, and Seething,” or “Pardon My Satanic-nature.”

Those are just some ideas.

You think I’m kidding? You think I’m exaggerating? I’m not.

“Pre-menstrual Syndrome…” Bullshit. That sounds so innocuous, like it ain’t that big of a deal.

Well I’m here to speak for those of us women who TURN INTO MONSTERS for a few days each month and pretty much have no capacity to change it. I’m always slightly amazed my boyfriend hasn't broken up with me after this "special time".

Men, listen up. This shit applies to you too.

At any rate, check it out: once a month, about a week before my period, I’m sitting there minding my own business when all the sudden, out of freaking nowhere, drifts into my reality a dark, cold haze. It enters every cell of my skin, right through to my bones. I feel it sinking in, a discomfort. An irritation. Like a fly buzzing just outside my ear. I feel it course through my veins. An anxiety. An angst. And I want to break things.

When it hits my ears they become more sensitive. When it hits my brain it becomes confused, scattered, anxious. When it hits my eyes they begin to only see the shit that annoys me. They see only negative.

And when it hits my heart, my heart gets heavy. It becomes a thousand pounds. My emotions burst from it in quick flashes of pain and agony and existential contemplation. What IS the meaning of life? Why AM I here? WHY didn't that motherfucker tip me more than two dollars for a phenomenal haircut?

But mostly…WHY IS MY BEST FRIEND/ROOMMATE SO FUCKING ANNOYING?

Why am I cohabitating in the first place?

Why don't I make more money so I can afford a 1 bedroom with all the amenities?

Why don't I have kids?

Would I like my kids?

Why am I so fat?

I wish I were 18 again.

Why aren’t I 18?

I need a scone.

And there’s that FUCKING FLY.

SHUUUUUUT UP!

It’s never shutting up.

It’s here. “People Must Surrender,” because I’m fucking insane. For a few days, I am insane. Women who get PMS like me should get a break from their lives. We should get a handicapped parking spot. We should get special pills and massages and a camp or something with nothing but silent people, trees and hot tubs.

Why? Well, I’ll tell you why. Because once a month:

1. I am not responsible for the shit that comes out of my mouth. I don’t even know who the fuck is saying it but I KNOW IT AIN’T ME. That bitch is crazy.
2. I am not responsible for the shit I put into my mouth (Yes, I just said I am not responsible for the stuff going in or out of my mouth.)
3. I want to crawl in a hole and weep and die, though it’s unclear to me exactly why.
4. I cannot recall why anything in my life is the way it is and I’m pretty sure it’s ALL WRONG. (But there’s nothing you can do to fix it so don’t even try because it’s never getting better and that’s just the way it is you fucktard.)
5. I am no use to my boyfriend (because it’s all his fault).
6. I am no use to my friends (because they’re so irritating I can’t spend more than 5 minutes near them).
7. I am no use to my coworkers (because everyone's face is irritating me somehow).
8. I am bloated. And nobody likes that. But I can't drink water or get to the gym or do anything other than eat chocolate and caffeine because I'm comforting myself with food and beverage even though I'm going to regret it and I'm getting fatter by the fucking minute but OMG there's that FLY and IT WON'T STOP BUZZING

Dude. No really. Let’s start a PMS camp.

Some medical site describes the emotional PMS symptoms as follows: “tension, irritability, mood swings or crying spells, anxiety, depression.”

Summarization:

Fuck you.

You irritate me.

Please don't ever leave me.

My GOD why are you so annoying?

No wait, I'm sorry I'm such a bitch.

I want to move to Freemont, West Virginia.

Holy shit, I'm fucking hungry.

It’s good to be back. In more ways than one.

Family Reunions. Double the family, double the...not fun.

Every five years or so, usually in the summertime, some nutso aunt sees it customary to host a Family Reunion, where all of your extended family gather for an extended weekend. So to prepare you for the 1 in 5 chance that you must endure one of these abominable experiences, jump on in.

Now, everyone getting together may sound amazing in concept, but has the potential to go horribly awry in practice. The Family Reunion only happens once every five years for a reason. It's like the Family Olympics.  Even though the Olympics only happen every four years.

Look, just forget about the Olympics, okay?

The point is, you train for years to get to the point where you can be the best that you can be, so that when you see that hot second cousin of yours, even though you would never consummate your lust, you can make them seriously rationalize in their heads that making out with a second cousin wouldn't be nearly as bad as making out with a first cousin.

When we were younger, Family Reunions were great! They provided us the opportunity to bond with our cousins and meet that second cousin that one day we would have a totally inappropriate, but nonetheless hot, crush on. It was good, clean family fun.

Now that everyone's grown, but not old enough to have kids, and all the cousins are good friends and of drinking age, oh my God, do people get wasted.

Especially Nana.

And that's okay.

Yes, I just said it's okay to get wasted with family, which goes against my previous teachings, (Previous Teachings) but --listen carefully-- Family Reunions involve enough people and enough stress, that it would be wrong not to drink.

Unless you're an alcoholic. Then you most definitely should not drink. However, drinking adds to the experience.

For example, when your brother's perfect wife is taking pictures with her perfect kids, who are all wearing perfectly matching plaid outfits, you can act like you're at one of those interactive Sound of Music screenings where you get to drink and yell at the film. You can demand they all sing "So Long, Farewell", and when the children look confused and a bit frightened, and your brother gently suggests that you stop drinking, you can get up and start sprinting and pretending you're running to Switzerland.

Now to me, that's hilarious, only because The Sound of Music was one of my mother's favorite videos, and I watched it enough as a child that I have it memorized. To you, probably not so much. Brush up on your Julie Andrews days of yore, then we'll talk.

If you weren't drunk, you might not think it's amusing when your eighty-four-year-old uncle hits on your twenty-two-year-old daughter. With the benefits of alcohol, however, you find him humorously reminiscent. It sort-of reminds  you of when he hit on you when you were twenty-two, but it was a little more serious because he was only fifty-four and now he can blame it on Maker's Mark and being senile. No matter. It's nostalgic to see your little girl has grown up so fast. Your daughter, however, does not find this incident particularly funny or sentimental. But when her second cousin sees her great-uncle hitting on her, maybe he'll get jealous, so she'll deal with it.

God. What drives me extra banana sandwich is when you get that great-aunt that is asking all about what you're doing in life, but they ask your parents instead of you.

  I can field all sorts of questions from aunts, uncles, second aunts, third uncles twice removed, great aunts about what I'm doing with my life by myself.

This should be like a hay day for parents, cause they don't have to be constantly giving updates on their children. If someone asks how I'm doing, Mom and Dad, point to my general direction to where I'm smoking pot in a field, and go back to sipping your margarita.

Sex. I've already said too much.

I have my best friend's computer for a couple days while she's out of town, since mine isn't an Apple and took a gigantic shit on me and I'm in the midst of getting it fixed. So my apologies for the back-to-back blog posts, but I've got a lot that's built up over the last month that I need to just get out. One experience, in particular, has stood out apart from the rest. Perhaps something I should share, and in turn, you share with your parents...so that this never has to happen to you.

This shit is about to get real.

~

I walked in on my parents having sex.

Friggin. Gross.

I believe it was standard missionary position, though I can't be certain, as I immediately suffered from hysterical blindness. I ran back downstairs to my bedroom, crying, and soon after my mom ventured into my room and I demanded to know why her and dad would be having sex if they already had two children. Was I not good enough? (PS, I'm adopted, there's no excuse for my parents to EVER be having sex. Ever.) She assured me that I was good enough, and I'm pretty sure she said some other crap about two people and loving each other but I chose not to listen. So that sort-of made me feel better. Besides the fact that the image has stayed with me and the last 15 years of my life have been torture.

~

So, I am going to write this blog [while peeking out from my covered eyes - because the topic is that scary,] to all parents, everywhere. Consequently the writing process with be arduous and take three times as long as usual, mostly because I'll be typing with my elbows. This does not necessarily effect you as a reader, but I hope it gives you a lot more appreciation for the pain and suffering I'm about to endure on  your behalf. I even had to TiVo my favorite show, Dogs With Jobs. Don't worry about me, I'll see Dogs With Jobs another time. I'll be left with the heart-warming feeling of seeing a dog with a job, which will help me to ease into the recovery process of post-parent-sex-writing....although then I will sink into a subsequent depression wondering, "If a dog can have a job, why is the unemployment rate so high?"

Now I'm just stalling.

In anticipation, I'm keeping an air sickness bag I stole from my last flight by my side, along with Gatorade and saltine crackers to help restore my electrolytes from the parent-sex-writing-induced vomiting. This will be unpleasant, much like a root canal or a pap smear.

You see? Even writing "pap smear" was gross.

Here goes nothin'...

Parents, you probably had a sex talk with your child when they were about eleven, not because you wanted to, but because your son started screaming uncontrollably at the sight of his giant erection, which he sustained while riding shotgun in the family Volvo on the way to Disney World. Whether it was the heat, the bumpiness of the road, his half-asleep state in which he was thinking about The Little Mermaid, or any combination of the three, you'll both never know. All you know is that stretch of road between Myrtle Beach and Orlando will always be seared in both of your minds as a turning point in your relationship.

The moment when there was such a thing as too much information exchanged between a parent and a child.

You have had plenty of conversations since then. Let's not forget the "I think about what my life would be like if I hadn't married your mother" talk. Or the, "I had my share of gay experiences when I was your age" conversation. However, since this was your first, it holds a special resonance.

Consequently for the rest of your trip, your son shied away from Cinderella and Belle for fear of a repeat incident, and has since beheld Disney cartoon heroines with a mixture of lust and fear. Actually, that's how all men view all women.

And never forget the conversation you and your spouse had later that night: "Honey, at least he's not gay." Not that you would have a problem with that, you'd love him the same, but there is some relief in knowing that in twenty years later he won't be visiting Disney World with his partner on "Gay Day". Because let's face it, that's just gay.

Or perhaps, your daughter walked in on you two doing it like no ones business, (Oh, God. I just got that feeling where your mouth starts to water before you puke. Okay, it's gone.) and out of guilt, you went downstairs to assure your weeping daughter that you weren't trying to have more babies because she wasn't good enough.

 Either way, there's no mature or normal way to talk to your kids about sex. Maybe you think someday they'll just come to accept it?

No.

And from my personal experience, do not book adjacent hotel rooms with your kids and think you'll get away with mounting like jack rabbits. Your kids aren't eight anymore, they're twenty-one, and completely able to comprehend what's going on. That's disturbing enough in and of itself, but then your kids get to thinking it's not very fair that you're having sex and they're not, so you're footed with a $200 minibar bill the next morning. Really, you deserved it.

Yes, it's good for you that you're super freaking old and still having sex. Huzzah! I hope you feel like Pierce Brosnan and Rene Russo in The Thomas Crown Affair. Just keep your personal relations around your kids under the deepest of covers.

Soundproof covers.

Neither you nor your child should ever awcknowledge that the former or the latter has had any involvement in coitus

Please also refrain from telling your child the story of how they were conceived. Yes, you may have taken the entire family to St. Croix, (which children really appreciate cause we can't afford such luxuries!) but that does not mean you can recount the story, over a couple of pina coladas, of how twenty-two years ago you and your spouse engaged in crazy, tropical, island intercourse...that eventually resulted in your child.

In conclusion, please never mention the act of sex, nor utter the word "sex," even in the most sex-less of contexts, like, "the amoeba has no sex organs," or "Grandma hasn't had sex in forty years!" -Oh, wait.

Oh, God. Excuse me.

Cue projectile vomit into stolen airline receptacle.