Full Beaver Moon

a.k.a. "My Vagina's Monologue"

Is this thing on? Check one, two. Check! Check!

Yes, okay. Hello. Hi. How is everyone on this lovely, and quite appropriately named "Full Beaver Moon" evening?

Whew! I've been a very busy gal lately. My "handler" (she thinks she's in charge, but we all know who's running this circus) has done a great job rejuvenating me and taking me on interesting adventures!

What I gathered you all here to tell you is ... and this is just between you and me ... I'm not actually secretly trying to get my handler pregnant! Shhhh!

Oh sure, she thinks I am. She's been accusing me of that for going on 3 months now, ever since she met my awesome new boyfriend's "handler" (he also thinks he's in charge, but really isn't). She thinks I don't know she's had me "fixed" ... oh, I know, trust me. I know. Who do you think gave her that idea?

Yeah, it's true that I've been allowing Aunt Flow to visit me more often ... four days sooner than her trusty lifetime of perfectly timed 28-day visits. Honestly, I don't like her anymore than any of you do. I get better attention and service when she's not hanging around, throwing a damp rag over things, so I'm not exactly thrilled that she'll be arriving two extra times in the coming year at this more frequent rate.

I'll let you in on the bigger picture that my handler is missing here: You know that fantastic, high testosterone, mid-cycle time? Yeah, the time when a gal *could* get pregnant. Well, I'm getting more of those in the coming year, too! (Pun intended.) Everybody wins! (Especially me.)

And to tell you the truth, I'm not in control of this. And neither is he. It's those magical, mystical, chemical properties in our pheromones causing all of this. It's probably also the same thing that makes my handler regularly not pay attention to her surroundings, so she will trip and fall, and makes his handler absentmindedly mistake fancy hand dryers for urinals.

Together, this dynamic--albeit distracted--duo are a chemistry tour de force. His handler probably doesn't feel the effects of this as jarringly as my handler does, because his hormones let him bathe in it more constantly, letting him get fully acclimated to it. Unfortunately for us over here at Team Vagina, we have to surf with the estrogen tides.

I am here, however, to apologize for not letting my handler know that I'd be letting Aunt Flow make earlier visits, thus throwing off her ability to understand when she was suddenly feeling angsty or needy or forlorn or extra horny, even. When you throw a curve ball more than half a week in advance with no warnings, there isn't time to know when to take a swing at it or duck.

Last night I inspired her to get out of bed just to look at the calendar, after my favorite guy's handler said, "Didn't you fall apart like this last month?" She thought he was wrong for suggesting that monthly anniversary milestones might be the cause, and he was ... but he wasn't wrong on there being a pattern. She saw the "4 days early ... 4 days early ... 4 days early there, too" pattern last night, however.

Sorry about not letting you know about this sooner. If I simply started talking to you out loud, you might not handle that too well either. But now we're finally all on the same calendar page! Isn't that great!?

Okay, yeah, my handler had to have a couple unexpected meltdowns a time or three--and maybe even bum my boyfriend's handler out in the process a bit--but knowledge is power now. Yay!

Heck, even just having spent an evening with him once in June and again once in August, before any of the real fireworks began, made Aunt Flow think she needed to arrive two days early each of those times ... just in case. The mere hint of the pheromone chemistry is just that good.

Also, sorry to tell you this, girlfriend, but I'm probably going to ruin some of your fun this coming weekend, too.

Yes, four days early.

Yes, again.

I promise I'll make it up to you both very soon ... like four days sooner! See, everybody wins!

Okay, I think we're done here.

Play me out, Cat...

No, not Keyboard Cat! C'mon, everyone knows vaginas love Cat Stevens.

Handle Like Eggs

I'd like to take a break from writing about boyfriends and aging vaginas to talk about parenting. In particular, I want to address the issue of how to father a daughter ... and how it inevitably leads to anxieties about boyfriends and aging vaginas.

Well, it doesn't have to. It could actually lead to no anxieties or issues whatsoever, if done with great love and care. So maybe we should start this discussion with how to steer clear of some of the potholes that could lead your little girl down some dark, otherwise avoidable paths.

#1 - Love her mother. The woman who will be your daughter's first female role model, like it or not, is her mother, and your relationship with her mother is going to set the tone for many, many, MANY of her future romantic relationships. If you're still lucky enough to be married to her mother, just love her with everything you have, and don't be afraid of PDAs. You want a man to come along one day who treats your daughter that way and nothing less than that, right? Then model that behavior for her, so she can recognize it when she sees it ... and more importantly, so she can spot it when it's absent.

#2 - Respect her mother. You'd think this would go hand-in-hand with loving her mother, but you'd be surprised at how many people say or do disrespectful things in private. This kind of talk might seem funny or a way of letting off some steam to you, but your daughter will first identify with you when she's little, then she'll identify with her mother once she's past her teens. If you're divorced and can't think of anything nice to say about your ex at present, then talk about how smart and beautiful you found her mother when you first met ... and milk it. If there weren't any good qualities (c'mon, everyone has something good in them!), then make some up! Mold your daughter into the image you want to see her someday, don't send her down a path of self-loathing. If you're still married, although this should go without saying, DO NOT sneak around on her mother ... especially do not be a repeat offender, while accusing her mother of jealousy. You do not want to see your adult daughter going from one lousy relationship to another, right? If your daughter forms the impression that women in general, or her mother in particular, are irrational, stupid, or otherwise incompetent, how do you think she's going to be able to stride confidently out into this world? Just remember this: if you undermine or belittle her mother's decisions, you were one of them. Let that sink in for a minute.

#3 - Adore your daughter. You don't like princesses? Too bad! Treat her like one anyway. You don't like ponies? Too bad! Buy her every toy pony you can and let her ride as many real ones as possible. When she's a teenager and you don't like her room a mess ... TOO BAD! Tell her that you love what she's done with the place anyway. She gets embarrassed when you try to hug her in public? TOO BAD! Hug her anyway. She will love you for it someday, even if she doesn't realize that in the moment she's trying to squirm away from you. Never ever ever tell her she's gaining weight, dressing weird, awkward, moody, or, heaven forbid, that she's "living her life all wrong." She's not you. She's a better version of you already, because she hasn't been all messed up in the head by anyone else yet. Don't you dare be the one to mess her up first! Along these same lines, never ever say any of these things to her mother either (see #2). You have the power to make or break your daughter's self-confidence ... this is your prime super power. Use it only for good.

#5 - Show interest. Encourage her to explore and try new things by being the sounding board to the things that interest her. What things does she dream about? Where does she want to go? What does she want to do? Who does she want to become? What boy does she have a crush on and why? Ask her to list his good qualities, even if that makes you squirm. If you take an interest, she'll open up and let you in even more, and hopefully come to you whenever she needs advice, rather than her dumb peers. This is especially important to her in regards to boys ... again, even if it makes you squirm. You are the oldest boy in your daughter's life, and you can give her insight in ways that her mother can't. This is your second super power. Use it only for good.

#6 - Be present! Do not, under any circumstances, abandon her. This includes emotional abandonment by just never being there for her when she needs you, as well as actually never being physically present for her. She may seem strong and unaffected by your influence, but trust me on this, she's far more delicate than you know. Basically, treat her blossoming personality like fragile cargo: HANDLE LIKE EGGS and DO NOT DROP. That doesn't mean she needs to be treated like a China doll; she just needs you to think before you act or speak.

If you ...dad-to-be or dad-to-she ... choose not to heed this list of suggestions, well ... that's okay, I suppose. Maybe you'll imbue her with just enough dysfunction to make her funny and interesting. And maybe she'll thank you publicly from the pages of her wildly successful book (or mildly successful blog).

My Vagina Monologue

Or, "Sisterhood of What's Traveling in Her Pants" ... sorry, that was the only other title that came to mind, but wow, it's way worse!

Don't be afraid/aroused -- no vaginas were photographed for this blog.
("Black Iris" - Georgia O'Keeffe)

Ladies, when was the last time you took out a hand mirror and gave yourself a good look. Y'know ... down there.

I actually used to do that quite regularly, to be honest. It was a good way to make sure things were copacetic, and, frankly, I'm quite fond of my lady parts. They've always treated me well and weren't too hard on the eye, in my and (many a' lovers) opinion.

[Yes, boys, they are most definitely "parts" and not "part" singular. The individual parts also have their own individual personalities, but that's a blog for another time.]

Anyway, back to what lead me to write this here entry...

A little while back, I watched a documentary called The Perfect Vagina in which a female filmmaker pursues the ideas and reasons behind how women relate to their own parts, culminating with women (and the filmmaker herself) taking a mirror and actually giving their genitals a long look and describing what they see, thus helping them to come to terms with other issues in their lives. It made me feel a little sad for the women who were terrified of that idea, but also made me realize that I hadn't done such a thing myself in a while.

...Hmm, a long while. When had I done it last, I wondered? Was I still involved with Dr. Jekyll? What was that, maybe three years ago or so? Had it really been that long?

It had been that long. I resolved then and there to remedy that post-haste, but post-haste got derailed by finding wedding things to pin to one of my boards on Pinterest ... which is yet another blog for another time, especially when you consider I was doing that without even having a boyfriend. Well, I had an imaginary boyfriend, sure, but you need one of those if you're going to have an imaginary wedding! Am I right?

[Disregard anything I wrote in that last paragraph, please.]

In the years since that last relationship, I hadn't really thought about that area "down there" because I had sort of "turned off" the whole idea of "sexy time." Do all of these excessive quotation marks make me seem "self conscious"?

I had even stopped masturbating* due to forgetting that area existed. If it wasn't for "that time of the month," I probably wouldn't have known I even had lady parts anymore. In my mind, the region would resemble a Barbie crotch ... or a Ken crotch; they're about the same. Basically, it was just the area that would start to go numb if I sat on it for too long, which is pretty much every day.

I'd forgotten to go check things out for many more weeks, until I suddenly found myself facing a new dating situation in which sex** was not only likely, it was imminent. The relationship just sort of "fell into my lap," so to speak, and I realized that said lap had been untended for too long. It was definitely going to need some "landscaping" at the very least, but maybe I should also take a closer look-see to make sure everything was still copacetic.

So I marched into my bathroom, stripped from the waist down, grabbed a trusty hand mirror, sat myself down on the floor, and took a peek. I was expecting to see the flower that I remembered so fondly: a lovely deep pink bud spiraling open, inviting much admiration and adoration.

What I saw, however, made me gasp loudly and exclaim, "Someone stole my vagina!" Or at least that's why I was thinking in exclamatory fashion.

The nearly two years of sitting on my "fanny" (as the Brits like to call it) all day at this desk job had not been kind. All that sitting atrophy was also compounded by absolutely no sexy time (or even any sexy thoughts) to get the blood flowing to that region in all that time. So what I was looking at was that sometime in the last three years I had somehow gotten old! Down there!

"I thought we had a deal! We were going to age gracefully together. Do you see my face? Of course you don't; you're too far away. Trust me, I do not look my age. How dare you break with our pact this way!"

Yes, I was speaking to my vagina ... well, the whole area, really.

My anger quickly gave way to guilt. "I'm sorry. This is from neglect, isn't it? I've given you no attention whatsoever in years. What was I expecting? I'm so very sorry! I am just awful, and I totally deserve this!" Then I got a little teary-eyed. Just a little. And then I started to giggle, because I was tearing up about my vagina. Who does that? I do, apparently ... but so did a bunch of women in that documentary, so I didn't feel that foolish. Suddenly, I understood. And yeah, maybe I did feel a little foolish.

I decided to take a closer look to embrace this new mature me. First I noticed that my pubic hair, which had been nearly black before, was getting lighter ... like a golden, reddish hue. Was that the way I was going gray?

Under that, the skin had changed colors, too -- from deep pink to a sort of deep purple. I wasn't too thrilled about that aspect. I mean, I love purple and could just consider it "exotic," but that was going to be tough to get used to ... basically, I just didn't recognize myself anymore.

Finally, when I turned the hand mirror over to the magnifying side, I saw wrinkles. Yes, wrinkles! DOWN THERE! Seriously!? I was no longer a pretty pink rose; I was now a dusty dried rose that someone had saved to remember some special occasion that no longer matters. My lady parts were becoming irrelevant! That simply would not stand, no siree.

I was so bewildered by this turn of events that I decided to tell my new soon-to-be-beau about this ... before we even met! Yes, I know that's nuts ... and yes, I know guys do not care about this one bit, but he needed to know what he was getting into ... not my vagina! My brain. I felt it was important that he see how I faced that situation, the silly thought processes that I went through, and ultimately how I was coming to be okay with it because, "Hey, look, I can talk about it and laugh, see!"

He just seemed completely confused by the whole conversation and decided the best form of action was to talk me down off some metaphorical ledge. I thought his response was sweet at the time, but I assured him that I really wasn't asking for the psych couch. I was just wanting him to see how (adorably) neurotic I could be, but it was the benign kind of neurotic ... like a female Woody Allen, without any inappropriate attraction to youngsters.

I'm not sure he ever got that, however. It was almost the same "talk her down from the ledge" reaction I got from him when I admitted (full of squirmy, uncomfortable embarrassment) that I had a board on Pinterest with things for an imaginary wedding. Clearly, my neurotic brand of comedy failed to register as humor with that one.

But guess what? It all makes for okay blog fodder, no? That is, if you haven't navigated away from this already in disgust, I s'pose. Some may have navigated away by now because they were disappointed in the lack of graphic pictures. Sorry, boys (and some girls)! It's not that kind of blog.

Just what kind of blog is it? Self-flagellation with a rubber chicken, perhaps.

*Yes, girls do that, too!

**Unexpected bonus of sex: having it can have a "fountain of youth" effect ... down there!

-----

Next time on The She-Creature Speaks: My imaginary boyfriend.