I’m not alone in having a soundtrack for my life. There are several musicians that I’ve written about like Ani Difranco, Amanda Palmer, Liz Phair, Karen O, and Florence and the Machine that keep circling in my life, but Kathleen gave me a new singer to add to the vagina squad of awesome: Ane Brun.

She is from Norway, but lives in Sweden, and her voice is amazing. I could get lost in it forever.

I go through these periods of my life where I feel like I am moving through life with my shoulder down, not plodding per say, but moving with a sort of steady pace. I feel in control, and I know where I am putting my feet. I know what I want, and I work for it.

Then things come in and spin me all around.

My brain is so full of thoughts and emotions. It isn’t all the Viking either. I mean, it is him and it isn’t him. My thoughts aren’t all him, but he brings it out in me. He spun me out of my orbit and is forcing me into a different pace. I’m no longer controlled.

From one moment to the next, I am somewhere different. Mostly I bounce between elation and terror. I’ve tried very hard to accept that I am an emotional creature, and it was easy when my emotions made sense. When I could look at what I felt, turn it over in my palms, and know what I was feeling and deal with it. I can’t do that with this. Everything is spinning so quickly, and I am trying desperately to figure out where I am. I am trying to make things move in a way I understand. Tina quoted “Labyrinth” at me and told me I had no control.

So, my choices are to let go and let the spinning take over, or stop it and walk away. I can’t walk away. Giving over control and power scares me. It actually terrifies me, but I can’t give up something that could be wonderful because I am scared.

If I let go and spin off and he isn’t there, I will hurt, probably a lot. I will feel silly because I felt so much so passionately. I’ve hurt before, and I survived. I’m tougher than I think. Feeling silly for being emotional and passionate is useless. I am passionate. It makes me crazy and unpredictable but it is also why I can love so many people and care so much. I’ve known I am all or nothing. I chose all.

I’m going to spin and hope he is there. I am going to shut off my thinking and stop trying to right myself. I’m letting go of my control and my power. Like everything else in my life, if I fall and hurt myself, at least I tried.

This is a quickie for the day. I attending a barbeque and don’t have much time. I love you cats, but someone is offering to feed me food cooked on an open flame. Food AND fire, that is a guaranteed good time.

So I am thinking about starting a new section on my site where I add helpful tips for men on how to survive the women in their lives. I have a unique perspective on this because of so many years being “one of the guys,” and I think it would be a great service to the world if I shared little pearls of wisdom with the less women savvy members of the male species.

Here are a few examples:

We aren’t like you. It doesn’t make us crazy or irrational, just different. If we can adjust our thinking to include you guys, you can do the same.

Tell us we are pretty, or some variation thereof. Always, everyday, especially if we look like we put effort into making ourselves pretty for you.

Don’t call your woman bro, dude, buddy, or anything else you might call your male friends. We serve different functions than your doods, and should be addressed differently. You don’t want us treating you like we would our bffs. Trust me.

Yes, we are going to over analyze everything, especially in the beginning. That is how women work. Yes, it will drive us insane. It is because we care. If we aren’t analyzing every little thing, then we don’t give a shit about you. If you are looking for a quick bang it is one thing, but if you want a relationship, it is good to have to reassure your woman. Suck it up and do it.

Don’t expect us to know what is going on with you, especially in the beginning. We can’t read your mind, anymore than you can read ours. If you are stressed out, you act funny. Many women will take that acting funny to mean there is something wrong. If you tell us it is work, family, your dog, or whatever, we will understand. It is much easier to explain that then to deal with hurt feeling and pissed offness.

That is what I have so far, and I need to go get dressed for my meat cooked over an open flame, and, you know, seeing my friends.

The PMS Shame Spiral

A good illustration of my crazy

Every woman on earth knows the PMS Shame Spiral. We overreact or otherwise behave badly while we are pmsing, and, before we know it we are sucked into a vortex of crazy. We jump from one reaction to another knowing full well the entire time we are behaving irrationally, because our emotionally rational selves are banging on the glass walls of the hormone powered box they are trapped in. We can’t stop. We throw out our arms, dig in our nails, and lean back, but we continue bouncing from one reaction to another.

I’m not saying we are wrong to react. The biggest problem with the PMS Shame Spiral is normally the thing that sets it in motion is a viable thing to react to, but we see the magnitude of our reaction is askew. By the end of it we feel like such a big box of crazy that we can’t make heads or tails of it.

My Big Box of Crazy:

Wednesday night, I had one of the most incredible dates in the history of dating. I was supposed to have another one tonight (I haven’t slept yet so it is still Thursday), but the Viking had an emergency at work and had to cancel.

Sane, not on the first day of her period, Selina would have been really disappointed but still happy because she was with her BFF and going to have a great time. I would have understood that things like this happen all of the time, and work can be an asshole. I would have been sympathetic to him, and I would have recovered fabulously.

Unfortunately, this didn’t happen to that me, it happened to the whack ton of hormone crazy me. I was devastated and annoyed, because I had already shaved my legs.  Oh sweet mother, I pouted. I was flew into full force pouty princess mode. It was embarrassingly bad. Poor Tina. Me and her two year old threw the fits of the century. In my defense though, I just moped and sighed and acted emo, the kid threw stuff and screamed.

During the height of the pouting, I was being super insecure about something, and instead of thinking it through, I sent a terrible pouty text message. About ten minutes later, I realized I sent a jackass text message to the person dealing with a crap storm, and I couldn’t unsend it. So, I had to send another text message explain that I was a juicebag.

Yeah

Then I realized I had been pouting like a gorramn 2 year old and making Tina’s life miserable instead of realizing it could still be a great night. Tina had asked me for a favor earlier in the height of the emo fit, and I told her no without even thinking of it. This woman has done nothing but bend over backwards to be great, and I was too self involved to do one stupid thing. Even if I hadn’t been in the middle of a PMS Shame Spiral, I would have felt terrible when I realized what I did, but with the crazy filter broken all to shit, the Spiral deepened.

I spent the rest of the night apologizing and moaning about how bad of a friend I am. So, Tina, who has her own shit going on, had to deal with not only the pouting but also me freaking out and feeling guilty. Because she has the patience of a goddamn saint, she didnt smack me.

Then at midnight I was brushing my teeth, feeling like the biggest juice bag on the planet for being an emotional wreck, and it suddenly struck me what was happening. The fantastic thing about Tina is when I walked back into the other room and started with ‘So, this is why it is okay that I am crazy,’ she started laughing, and we made fun of how big of a nut job I am.

That silly, silly vagina tax.