So where did the electrolysis leave us?

We now have many little holes along the bikini line. Rather like tiny navels, they fill with lint, so I can't wear black panties. And it behooves me to scrub with a scrub brush once in a while.

Now I shave. Not exactly a fanatic about it, I still feel that I need to shave the naughty bits. I used to shave in the summer, anyway, whenever I needed to wear "feminine protection." Just struck me as more efficient for keeping clean. Eventually, it seemed worthwhile to completely shave the Venusian Triangle.

As with all shaving, this presented problems. Bikini lines are constantly rubbed by underwear, at least mine are. Scottish ancestory has endowed me with wavy hair, anywhere I care to grow it.

Shaving bumps are de rigeur for shavers in my family. My poor Daddy used to be constantly picking them out with a needle in my childhood, very occasionally enlisting my help when I was old enough.

After a long learning curve accompanied by my very own needle for digging recalcitrant hairs, I finally hit on the solution in a back issue of Playboy. A very bad shave for those areas would have to do. I ultimately began to simply clip them into a Yassir-Arafat-looking sort of shave and completely depilitate the absolute nethermost parts.

Keeps me busy year-round now, what with the need for incontinence protection. I even filch Husband RJ's Vidal Sasoon Mustache and Beard clippers.

Rather appropriate tool for the job, don't you think?

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Little Pond

Naughty Bits

Never mind that the bits don't feel much these days, they are still naughty. Why else would I hesitate to write about them?

I remember in Spain, back some thirty years ago, one could get legs waxed all the way up to the bikini line for about 10 buck ( in pesetas, of course). The victim simply stood on a table and the waxer slopped the stuff on in four dollops per leg and (after setting up two more victims) came back to rip it off the same way.

I declined, as did my more hirsute American friend. Too close to home, she'd say.

Fast forward to the 1980's. The GP gave me a hormone to ease the symptoms of what they now call Peri-Menopause, or whatever the latest term is. I began to grow hair where the Good Lord had previously spared me. Luckily for me, a group of friends were exploring/training in electrolysis, and needed a guinea pig. For free, no less!

The works, babeee! It was a few years before my first exacerbation and hurt like the dickens, but in those dinkie little bikinis we wore then, well, I looked like a Barbie doll. My GP even gave me a prescription for pain pills, although one of the co-conspirators was a doctorate in psychology who successfully used hypnosis and other mental tricks.

Those people were so anti-hair that they shaved their entire bodies, too. The leader of the band was a militant naturist, and the rest of us followed in varying degrees. My first encounters with nudists were in the 60's and 70's with communes and a few family friends. My own folks were never horribly body-conscious, so I was really open minded.

Now for the kicker. Hey, you knew there had to be one, right?

The last time I went for electrolysis, I was doing the stray facial hairs that accumulate after age 50. The now-totally licensed and very experienced electrologist was reluctant to work on me because of the MS. She was right.

The stray facial hairs were weird enough, with me twitching all the time at each shock, or rather, each pulsation. I was happy to undergo the torture to avoide shaving, so I directed her to a stray hair on the "happy line" that points to those important "bits." She gave it a quick zap.

My whole body convulsed, bringing my knees involuntarily almost up to where she was working. She never worked on me again. I believed she was completely unnerved.

So now I shave everything.

More later.

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Little Pond

If I were a guy,

I would totally have a mustache. This may not be the first time I've written about this, but I had an interesting dream.

It was like a commercial for shave cream, except it was for the underarms. In it, the shave cream gave a perfect shave, leaving the skin as if there were no hair follicles.

Every woman's dream, right? And I do know about waxing, and did it for years. The reason I shave now is that the act of scraping the skin leaves it more youthful over a very long period of time.

Evidently, I'm not going anywhere soon; may as well go there looking good.

Had a small kidney stone incident this week, apparently. "Apparently," because I never went to the doctor or ER. Wednesday, it was my turn to drive and it began to manifest during my shower. With ten minutes to go, I simply grunted with the pain and got in the car.

Very painful drive over the next twenty minutes. I hit the lavatory at the first coworker's stop, and already the worst was over. I spent a miserable day looking like death (or so I was repeatedly told) and scaring the bejesis out of my coworkers.

But, hey... I figured there were hospitals in Binghamton, if need be.

Short story: long, hard day, better night, and getting better each day.

More about shaving in a later post: "the naughty bits!"

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Truckers call it the Double Nickel

Got a surprise present last night.

This weekend we will celebrate at Garcias Mexican Restaurant, where I will, no doubt, opt for the chimichanga, guacamole salad and a glass of Dos Equis Special Lager.

It's good to get old.

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Little Pond

Serenity

Can one week of peace and quiet make up for my shattered life? We hope to find out. On break until May 4.

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Little Pond

Getting out of shape

No, not the HuggaMutt, but GrammaDog. Two days of intensive hiking, and five days of commuting and working in the pits of Binghamton. It's Monday, and I am about to do it all over again. Getting flabby and my legs are getting MS-y.

Watching the want ads in the paper, Craig's List, Monster, Career Builder, and Twin Tiers Help Wanted. Pretty sparse, so I'm lucky to have a job. Unfortunately, the bills are already piling up.

It's going to be a tough year.

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Little Pond

Not great.

The commuting is killing me, and I am not even driving much. I am tired all the time, 24/7 now. The fatigue allowed me to let my guard down, and I cannot do that there.

Went to my supervisor with a problem that had been vexing me for over an hour, and I mentioned good humoredly that I had "got to the point where I didn't care about it anymore." No raised voices or tears or even peevish crabbing. Even with some rest it still seems innocuous, but ya gotta watch yer back, right?

The supervisor took it to her boss and we had ourselves a little intervention. During which I was told that if I have a problem with anything, I had better "keep it to yourself" because an account representative could have been listening. As if I had announced the thing to the room, or even anyone else, but the boss.

Guess that strange look she always wears when she talks to me was some sort of a warning. I had figured she was shy or something, but keep in mind that I have many more years with the company than she has (many, many!), so I should have been wary of her.

I am now, alright. What a shame I had forgotten to beware of younger supervisors. Well, at least I have a weekend to rest up and get on the game and very much on guard, permanently.

Visited the river. Once with the HuggaMutt.

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Little Pond