I fell off the sidewalk again today

[the_siobhan]

As if sleep-dep and vertigo weren't enough, today I have PMS.

I came to this realization when I was contemplating the pros and cons of slaughtering a subway car full of innocents in retaliation for the fact that we were being delayed at the station. It occurred to me that that might be a little harsh, even by my anti-social standards.

I wasn't expecting it, of course. It's only the second one since I had my uterus removed last September. I'm curious to see what happens once I'm living in a household that only has non womb-equipped bodies living in it full-time, since I know I pick up a lot of symptoms from other people. (When I lived with ldot my pain tolerance would go through the floor in response to her cycle, something that never happened with my own. Drove me bug-fuck.)

For the approximate half of the population who have never experienced what PMS feels like, I can best describe it this way. Imagine somebody removes all your skin. Then they gently sandpaper all your nerve-endings so they are nice and raw and sensitive. Then they send you forth unto the world with the exhortation to try and "act normal".

Well of course every motherfucking thing is an irritant and a Big Deal and there is absolutely nothing that you can just let roll off your back. Innocuous comments from loved ones turn me into a weepy pile and I have graphic fantasys about punching a complete stranger in the throat for the insufferable sin of sitting next to me on a crowded streetcar.

Coincidentally, a study just came out with this evidence that women who undergo Hormone Replacement Therapy have a higher than average rate of dementia. Just more proof for my theory that estrogen makes you nuts.

Mind you, the fact that most people drive me nuts to start with probably stands me in good stead here, since refraining from thumping irritating people is a particularily well-developed muscle.

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Anyway. Trip to specialist was inconclusive since he was stuck in surgery so I have to go back to see him next week instead. I pretty much know what he's going to do -- send me for X-rays and other tests -- and it would be nice if I could get that part out of the way, but of course I have to wait to see him in person so he can authorize it first.

Me: So they X-rayed my head at the doctor's the other day.
Random co-worker: What did they say?
Me: They didn't find anything.

*boom-tish*

I expect to get a lot of milage out of that joke.

I did, however, get to have my first ever SARS-related experience -- being handed a mask and asked to wash my hands with antiseptic on the way into the clinic. That was kind of surreal. Because despite what the papers and the WHO say, it really hasn't really affected most people in the city all that much up to now.

Well, other than the fact that I feel the mild need to be slightly more entertaining than average because northbard is under quarantine and slowly going stir-crazy.

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On my way home I stopped in a local hardware store to pick up some random whatever, and a couple of guys came in just after me, talking loudly about the contents of the store and inquiring about the prices of things. This hardware store is one of the few remaining little Howard Cunningham type places, full of odds and ends from yard sales and crammed to the rafters with fascinating stuff. I love the place.

The proprietor, who is normally a very warm person, stiffened visibly when they came in and was curt in his responses to their questions. When they left he made some half-muttered comment in my vague direction about "Romany".

...

OK, call me a sheltered urban Mick girl, but that actually startled me. Logically, there would be Gypsies in Toronto, because there are people here from everywhere. I think the part that floored me was the obvious animosity from the third-generation Italian-Canadian behind the counter.

I guess I figured that if I comfortably count a few Irish Protestants as being within my friend group, such issues aren't a problem for anyone. Naive, me.

Comments

discord registered

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

I think the reactions concerning Gypsies, is different when it comes from people who have been affected by them. Reuben ived and worked in a neighborhood that had a lot of them. I can't mention them to him without him getting angry as he had severa paychecks docked due to them walking off with aot of stuff. He was 17-18 at the time.

There are places that do that?

I think I would have a slightly different take on just how many people in that story were "stealing".

It's gotta be confusing to children to live in an everything beongs to everyone society and then have to interact with our "this bleongs to me" outlook.

does that make sense?

Perfectly. There used to be a native tribe in Newfoundland that was completely wiped out by the white settlers over just such a disconnect.

Who is the "theif" depends on which side of the culture divide you are standing in.