no boys allowed in the room!!!!

LL did you wait it out and things settled down? I know YMMV and all that but I'll gladly take anecdotes.
yes
definitely settled down. aside from having to deal with it every 4 weeks, my only menstrual complaint these days is mittelschmerz on my right ovary. otherwise, it's really great to be free of that dull feeling that pervaded every waking day and then erupted into a monthly migraine followed by a light period. i'll take a slightly heavier period and even cramps for a week if it means i feel alive for the rest of the weeks i am not having my period.

i resent the fact that my menstrual cycle is now 26 days. maybe it has been for a while, and i never noticed? anyway, i just want those extra 2 days back.

the mirena IUD has lightened my periods and reduced the severe back cramping, but now i get really terrible boob-pain! not every time tho.

my PMS is more manageable now too
i feel capable of handling it, whereas before between the headaches and the emotional shit i was a total messssss

i resent the fact that my menstrual cycle is now 26 days. maybe it has been for a while, and i never noticed? anyway, i just want those extra 2 days back.

― Mistah FAAB (sarahell), Friday, February 20, 2015 9:15 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Not to alarm you, but mine has gotten shorter as I've gotten older and I'm at about 21 days now. :|

if genetics are anything to go by, i've got another 10 years to go

anyway, these posts are so otm right now

i hate dryer sheets, they are pointless

― harbl, Saturday, June 20, 2009 6:43 PM (5 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i don't like anything that makes things smell like anything!

― harbl, Saturday, June 20, 2009 6:43 PM (5 years ago)

Dryer sheets are not only pointless they actually make towels LESS ABSORBENT by coating them in a layer of goo. No thanks.

i've never understood why or how to use fabric softener

White vinegar in a Downy ball for towels, IMO.

xp me neither, but i have some downstairs neighbors that do a lot of laundry that always involves scented dryer sheets

Sarahell, mine has gone to 25-26 days.

I got an implanon insert & I love it. Except my period come every 4-5 months and I barf a lot the day before it happens! Not sure if it's coincidence. I am goign to talk to my oh bee jee why en about this.

quincie I am shaking my fist at the sky in re: yur endometrium

using towels coated in fabric softener goo is seriously a bad feeling. i love clean laundry. fabric softened laundry is no longer clean.

fabric softened laundry is no longer clean.

otm, it is a product for the home lol, but mostly sad

dryer sheets are only useful for anti staticking clothes & even then i hesitate

the smell, i hate it

I like unscented liquid fabric softener for regular clothes because otherwise, especially in these dry winter days, everything is a staticky shocking mess. (Detergent is unscented, too. I really hate the smell of laundry scents. Did you know you can buy shit that is just smell to add to your laundry? I do not understand it and I do not care for it.)

http://www.downy.com/en-US/product-line/scent-booster.jspx

What the fuck is this shit

scents where there should not be scents is a thing I hate
like scented tampons. wtf. in what universe is having your vag smell like a yankee candle store better than the alternative?

anyway i've drifted off topic as always

on the contrary, you brought it back around to tampons, which I am looking forward to obtaining at the airport today, especially when spouse came out of the bathroom this a.m. (I was still in bed) and said "uh-oh," and I looked up and he had blood smears on his chest! Which he was very gracious about.

Instead of crying again (well, I did cry again, but just a little), I thought of ENBB's bbq mouth story and laughed :)

using towels coated in fabric softener goo is seriously a bad feeling.

I like to put a little in (not tons or, as pointed out, they are not absorbent) because it fluffs them up a bit and otherwise they come out like scratchy hard rags which are more scouring than drying.

This might just be because I have old, cheap towels which have been washed a million times. Maybe it is even because they have been washed a million times with (a little) fabric softener. Hmm.

No to scented tampons though. I have enough trouble with scented products making my skin itch, you want me to put some up there? (and add to my TSS phobia/hypochondria too)

q - https://m.youtube.com/watch?a=&feature=youtu.be&v=DSehQsYU9h4

like scented tampons. wtf. in what universe is having your vag smell like a yankee candle store better than the alternative?

i think i bought some by mistake once ... they smelled like ...... dryer sheets

terrible revelation: my mom always used dryer sheets in the laundry, so i've always used them, too. now i realize that i have no conception of what non-dryer sheet laundry is even like!

I've been living in a tiny flat in London so long I've forgotten what laundry dried in a dryer and not just strung over the radiators is even like.

I use the unscented dryer sheets because an allergic reaction to fabric softener once had me drive myself to the ER at 4:00 am for a shot in the butt of prednisone followed by a week of pills and I still had red welts for A MONTH after that. If I don't use anything then everything just gets too stacticy.

i don't have staticky clothes but i don't really know why

one of my cats is really staticky; I've wondered if I should rub him with a dryer sheet (not really)

To wrap up the tamponless-in-turkey story: arrived at the airport with plenty of time to score some sort of "feminine hygiene product" in the very large and very busy international departures terminal. The Ataturk airport has one of the biggest duty free stores--I shouldn't even call it a store, it is like its own *wing*--I have ever seen, along with some luxury brand shops and a book and movie store. Also a Popeyes Chicken.

But no pharmacy.

No Hudson News type place with overpriced toiletries in tiny sizes.

No tampons.

NO PADS.

NO NOTHING!!!!! NOWHERE IN THE AIRPORT!

Our flight was then delayed three hour, increasing my panic because I am already halfway through the 17 pads that the spouse had gotten the night before. There is no way in hell I am going to make it through the three-hour delay, much less the ten hour flight! Still sick as hell, achy and coughing and miserable, desperate ad tearful, I realize my only option at this point was basically to start asking strangers if they had anything they could spare.

And then, in the distance, I saw a better solution: the Emirates VIP lounge, where I could see two lovely young women staffing the front desk.

I walked in and immediately burst into tears explaining my situation. They could not have been more lovely and gracious. "It is no problem! We can help you with this! Please, sit and we will take care of you." They led me to the lounge and poured me a fancy water, and in a minute or two appeared with with several pads wrapped up all nicely in paper, like a present.

To the ladies of Emirates Air, you are my heroes. Thank you for being so kind and soothing. The next time I am in a position to help another woman out of a pickle, I will do so in your honor!

Now back home and crazy heavy period seems to have disappeared as abruptly and mysteriously as it had appeared.

(I have totally rubbed a dryer sheet on a staticky cat before)

i don't have staticky clothes but i don't really know why

― computer champion (harbl), Sunday, February 22, 2015 5:26 AM (4 hours ago)

same here

Everything in our house is so staticky that when I wash my hands, I get a shock from the water coming out of the faucet.

q, that is a fantastic story!

aw quincie that story made me so teary. yay for the emirates ladies!!!

my friend was an exchange student for a year in Latvia in the early 90's. before she left her host sister had the presence of mind to watn her "BRING ALL OF YR WESTERN TAMPONS" if she hadnt brought literally a suitcase full, she said she would have been cutting up towels & bedsheets

i had my mom mail me tampons when i lived in colombia in college
i think the lesson of that story is "if you need some menstrual assistance, ask a woman!"

is there something stopping you from laying out the facts about his counterproductive behavior and asking him to make xyz changes? (not a flippant question, just wondering)

― groundless round (La Lechera), Thursday, February 19, 2015 2:52 PM (1 week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is old but i never replied

i think it's the fact that we work together on projects and i fear that i am/i will be seen as someone who burns bridges with people who don't agree with me and fucks up working relationships. and that that plays into his stereotyping of me and a few of the other women we work with.

and also i fear that he has more cache than me in a particular project and that my calling him out will lead to a schism with me on the losing side. id be in the right, but id also be left out of yet another project because of other people's problems dealing w/ women (or my problems putting up with BS)

id be in the right, but id also be left out of yet another project because of other people's problems dealing w/ women (or my problems putting up with BS)

― jello my future biafriend (roxymuzak), Thursday, February 26, 2015 10:20 AM (30 minutes ago)

totally know this dilemma. i chose "being in the right" a lot when i was younger, and i occasionally ask myself, "what if i didn't make a fuss? what if i didn't quit? maybe i made the wrong choice in retrospect?"

A lot of why I started the art/music venue I did, and kept at it for 10 years, was so I could set the terms and put up with less of that sort of BS.

i guess my thing is that it doesn't have to be a big confrontation. if you work with this person in any capacity, and it's work, it can start as a simple cordial (professional) conversation. i guess i deal with needing to confront people a lot for work and usually don't reach the point of actual confrontation unless someone is like lying to my face. then i don't feel bad about it at all. if it's a "we need to get along better" convo that's kind of normal and not worth second guessing if the professional relationship is worth saving. if it's not, who cares? but it sounds like you care.

however, i fully understand that these professional relationships are more nebulous than the ones i deal with at work, where there are at least somewhat clear job responsibilities, etc.

it's a lot easier if it's related to a job where you both get paid at a "professional" place of employment. When it's something that is somewhat like "a hobby," it is harder because the guiding principle tends to be "fun" or "enjoyment" so there is an enjoinder to not do/say things that get in the way of that.

yeah that's why i added the disclaimer -- i can see how it would be more difficult.

of course, you're no dummy! I'm just trying to articulate the dynamics of creative project relationships. It's something I've thought about for a long time, but I don't yet have a pat response/clear analysis.

it's like i just want to pretend like the awkward dynamics aren't there and treat it like any other professional interaction, the way it should be. even though i know it's not really like that :(

hell i still haven't found any local people who want to have anything to do with me; it's a long road. i wish you the strength to do what you need to do roxy!

prob just stop going to meetings and play video games instead

I've been looking at doctoral dissertations lately and for some reason I always read the acknowledgements. I'm sick of seeing variations on 'I could not possibly have got through this without the love of my husband/wife/squeeze'. How am I supposed to get through it as a single woman, then? Yes, I'd really love to have someone to support me through this, and just support me in general, to be honest, but I'm not going to NOT get through it without that hypothetical person.

Let's just take a moment to consider that maybe that Thank You is for all the years that spouse put up with the PhD's always being busy, always being distracted, long nights, academia bullshit, and listening to the same 700-odd pages of material for 4-8 years. Just think--you won't be forcing that on anyone! You're practically a walking, talking public service.

Ha! The thank you is deserved for those reasons and more, it's true. And internalizing all that is hard, and would be easier with a partner, but maybe I'll manage it without my head exploding.

Me & my friend wanted to have a thank you page in our masters thesis that was just an itemized list of how much vodka & wine we drank while writing it.

PhD candidates probably shouldn't ever be allowed to inflict that on anyone in a domestic partner relationship tbh, and anyone who doesn't smother them in their sleep is a much nicer person than I am.

xp lolol

Crabbits, that would have been awesome.

I should add that my dept. and field is filled mostly with women, which is why I posted it in this thread. Men also say they couldn't have done it without their wives. It's just that I see such an overwhelming number of women thanking men for enabling them to finish a task. I know it's an unusual task, and that support is helpful, but it still gets to me as a single woman.