On Real Proposal Stories
We had just finished reading each other the book about the Enigma war-code machine. He went to the store. He handed me a paper sack and said "I got you a present". Inside was a Grape-Ape Pez dispenser. I went to dispense myself a Pez, like you do, but instead of Pez there was a folded piece of paper jammed in Grape Ape's putative trachea. I unfolded it. It was in Enigma code! I decoded it. It read: "FOR A BIG SURPRIFE, GO TO BEACH AND DIG BY THE FEMCE BOST". "Femce Bost?" I queried. "It was supposed to be Fence Post!" he yelled. "Fence Post! Dig by the Fence Post!". I went to the beach, I dug by the femce bost, and under 3 inches or so of sand was a shoebox with a split of Veuve Clicquot and two champagne glasses, and a note saying "Will you marry me?" (luckily NOT in Enigma Code).
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On Were You Alive In…
@Kneetoe - My wrinkled, liver-spotted fist is in the air in your direction. Clutching a Doan's Pill and my ear trumpet.
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On Were You Alive In…
Yeah, and I was busy being nostalgic for 1979. Kids in 1989 had no idea... and they wouldn't get the hell off my lawn. @Spirit Fingers: That girl WAS poison, too, wasn't she?
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On Ask a Lady, Special Edition: The Repercussions of Sexual Abuse
@FoxyRoxy Best. Response. Ever. I could have written it myself, except for the part about never having met any great, open-minded therapists - but this fact only underscores your point: I got lucky and found one - a woman; brilliant and funny and jaw-droppingly perceptive and kind. I saw her for over 9 years (hopefully long enough for anyone on this board to concede that I gave it the good old college try). We hashed and rehashed my daddy/daughter/rape issues until there was nothing left to say or re-re-re-say about it. And though I enjoyed talking to her, and she helped me in other ways, it changed nothing about a) what happened to me, or b) what I like in the bedroom, whether that's related to my experience or not. I believe it IS related, for me anyway, but I have given up thinking I should feel bad about liking it rough. The things that happened to me still happened, 9 years of talking to a great therapist didn't/couldn't change that. I believe there are some things that can't be "fixed", and I also believe that that's just fine. For me anyway. Thanks for writing the response I wanted to write but couldn't think of how to say, exactly.
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On The Best Time I Became a Slutty Couchsurfer
Oh god I relate I relate. But I wasn't sleeping ON the couch, so much as IN it. At 20, living in L.A., having blown every good chance around me, I was sleeping in my car and going to Santa Monica College - met a guy in guitar class and became "friends", but he was renting the couch in the front room of a TINY Venice Beach apartment from an extremely picky older man. EPOM had a no-sleepover-guests rule. The EPOM had to walk through the living room, past the couch, to leave the apt. or go to the bathroom. SO every night, we would unfold the folding couch, I'd climb into the guts of it, and my Friend would fold it back up with me locked inside, and he'd sleep on it, apparently alone. We're all human; shame is universal, and if you have none, I don't want to hang out with you at the next ice cream social. Great story - thanks for writing it and making some of us feel accompanied.
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On What It's Like to Get a Biopsy
Napoleon - Thanks! I never did have those slender, Natalie-Portman-stick-bug-arms, and always wanted them when I was younger. But now I'm 40+ I have grown fond of them. Left one is Sylvia, right one is Chloe, and they can flap all they like... and I KNOW, RIGHT??? about that freaking doctor. That kind of arrogance just makes my brain come to a complete baffled halt... I did love how my ob/gyn gave him the hairy eyeball until he cringed, though! Good times...
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On What It's Like to Get a Biopsy
Oh sweet buttery Moses. Jane: I add my thanks to the many thanks of others. I love your writing, and I have had that exact. Same. Thing. (weird colposcopy clot). I feel so comforted, somehow, that a bunch of total strangers (though some of you probably know each other) are sharing this experience.
Along the lines of "Aren't Some Doctors Total Ass Hats" with a side order of "And Then There Was This One Who Was SO FREAKING AWESOME:" A long time ago I opted to have that birth control that consists of 5 little foam matchsticks, inserted beneath the skin and into the subcutaneous fat (ilgh) of my upper under-arm. Right on what is currently my Batwoman Cape (I'll save you, Gotham City! flapflapflap). This was early days for that particular birth control method, and I would be the first patient my (female) ob/gyn had ever done this to, so she gave me a big price break, if in exchange I would allow a group of (male) ob/gyn associates to observe the operation. It was to be done with a few deep shots of novocaine, then she showed me the Edwardian-looking silvery plunger/thruster device into which she would be loading each foam-stick and shoving it into my arm. Gulp, okay.
On the day of the operation I was a bit surprised to see not two or three, but SIX men standing around the room to watch. My doc gave me a reassuring smile and suggested I not look as she swabbed me with betadine and prepared to give me five deep shots, but I was sickly fascinated and kinda had to. The needle was LOOONG. It went in so far it made me sick to my stomach, so I did turn my head at that point. When the shots were done I was given about 7 minutes to "get numb" and then she made a small incision. That didn't hurt at all, but when took the plunger and started to shove those foamy sticks beneath the skin/into the fat of my arm - oh god, it hurt.. it pinched, and pulled. It was not the smooth glide I'd somehow expected. Unfortunately, then I remembered stuffing chickens under the skin and the ripping one has to do to advance the stuffing into all the parts... it was just awful, and painful, and uncomfortable/squidgy-feeling as hell. So I did what any normal person would do: I made a face. I didn't scream or cry, I just winced. And one of the (male) doctors bent over me, patted me on the head (!!) and said: "You do KNOW that you're not in any pain right now, don't you?" I was just gobsmacked. How the f#@*k do YOU know, I wanted to say, and then my incredibly cool doctor sat up and gave him such a scathing, withering stare on my behalf that he backed away and apologized. She winked at me and we continued on. The foam sticks worked for 5 years without having to do anything else for birth control (though I did gain about 40 pounds). I will never understand the arrogance and insensitivity of some doctors - regardless of their gender. Anyway, great post, Jane; thank you SO much for making me feel less alone in my weird-colposcopy-clot-having-had. Ishness. -
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On "Do Not Pretend That You Had No Idea Some Women Like Their Hair Pulled"