PPSD: Phantom Pee Spot Disorder

You know that feeling when you've sat down on a toilet seat and there was a little drop of something on it but you don't realize it until you stand up again and there's that little cool spot on your butt that you hope is water? Hold that thought.

I'm at the age where people complain they were never warned about this or that health issue. Actually, I'm way past that age, because a lot of it happens during menopause. Or perimenopause. In fact perimenopause is one of the things that people say no one told them about.

So in case no one told you about it, perimenopause refers to the years right before authentic menopause in which your body is just experimenting with how it would be if all your youth-enhancing hormones disappeared. So one day they'll drain out and the next week they'll surge back and be all What do you think about me now and you won't know whether to laugh, cry, or stab someone just because. "Nobody told me my periods would get heavier and more frequent," people complain, nor do they mention that from time to time you will be passing something that looks like a small damp rodent, or that you will develop new moles everywhere, and then plant whiskers on them like flags, or that you will be asked to cut down on sleeping for a few years because you can sleep when you're dead which by the way is coming right up too.

That business about being all crabby because your hormones are in flux is something people do tell you about, but it's not true. You're crabby because you're just about at the age when it will become obvious you married the wrong person or wasted thirty years at the wrong job, or had more kids than you needed or will ever use, or you realized you didn't follow your dreams because you never had any to begin with even though everyone assumed you should.

They don't always tell you about pre-perimenopause, which would be the thirty years before perimenopause. If you're lucky someone will have warned your nine-year-old self about periods but even so that first one is still going to come as a big surprise, and like as not people will have glossed over some of the nastier details in favor of something more hopeful like "You're becoming a woman." So even with the basics, you can't always count on a ton of good information.

And as long as we're about it, they don't tell you about how unpredictable your periods are going to be, especially the whiz-bang very last one that happens two years after the one before and one year after you've gotten rid of all the paraphernalia, as soon as your last hormone can detect you're wearing white pants.

They don't tell you anything about fibroid tumors and when they do, it's because you already have them, and then they tell you they're usually benign, although not always. They don't mention that they like to sit on your bladder like a big fibroid joke.

They don't mention the connection between laughter and laundry.

There's stuff men don't get warned about either. Like peni-pendular recession, or the effect of scrotal gravity on the hairline. Nobody ever talks about that, but those bow-legged old men with gigantic foreheads didn't come out of nowhere.

And so as a public service I offer all of these observations to those who might otherwise complain that no one ever told them about them, and add the following:

Sometimes your body gets just a big kick out of itself and makes shit up. Like suddenly developing a dime-sized portion of your left buttock that feels just a little colder than the surrounding acreage and every time you pull your pants up you think: did I just sit on a wet spot on the toilet? Five times a day you think that, for a couple weeks, and then you realize your own buttock is doing  that to you for no reason medical science will ever discover. There won't be a name for it, or a ribbon-color for it, or a foundation devoted to its cure.

So don't let that come as a surprise.

Oh Vanity, Where Is Thy Sting?

There are two doors to our downstairs toilet--possibly a design flaw--and if I don't make a point of shutting them all the way, I can count on my cat Tater to bump open the first door with her nose, glance at me, execute a graceful arabesque, and then stroll out the second door, leaving me open to the breezes. Her motivations are selfless: she is giving me an opportunity to admire her.

Which is admirable in itself, inasmuch as a lot of folks believe she has let herself go. It's emotionally healthy. I could learn from her. But I haven't felt real admirable in a while, thanks to a brisk and efficient visit from menopause. What's that, junior? Oh menopause is just a little heads-up. It's the universe's way of saying brace yourself, sugar bun, there's a bunch of stuff coming up for you to worry about, but at least you don't have to worry about being pretty anymore. 

So I don't waste a ton of time worrying about my looks, but it does occur to me on a nightly basis that I'm going to look like shit, dead. Assuming I'll die in my sleep (in a way other people will refer to as "peaceful," not knowing the terrifying content of my last dream), I have a pretty good idea what my survivors are going to see. Because as I drift in and out of sleep, I have become aware that my face and body, in their most relaxed state, assume an arrangement best described as "puddling up." Sometimes when I roll over, I have to pick parts of myself up and rearrange them on the mattress so I don't get a crease. It ain't sexy.

"She looks so peaceful," they'll say. Then they'll give in to curiosity and lean in, squinting.

"What IS that?"

"Huh. Oh, that's her lips."

"No, that. Over on the side of the pillow."

"Yeah, that's her lips. See? They're sprawled out on the edge of her left cheek, there."

"Man! I thought that was an old taco or something. What're her lips doing so far away from the rest of her face?"

"Looking for the cool spot, maybe?"

"And shouldn't there be breasts of some sort?"

"Sure. See [pointing]--that's one right there, sort of wedged underneath the armpit. You can tell if you follow it out from the chest. The other one has to be around here somewhere too. Turn the light on."

"Got it! It's hanging off the edge of the mattress. We should put these back."

"How we gonna do that?"

"I dunno. Fold 'em on a 45 and roll 'em down the front like shirt-sleeves?"

"Sure. What's all the rest of this stuff? All along the sides?"

"Huh. Now that we got the light on it, it looks like it's just the rest of her skin. It done come unmoored, somehow. Like frosting that didn't set up."

"Right? Aww. She looks like a big flying squirrel."

"A-dorable! Well, we should probably call the coroner or something, see if they can get this all scooped up."

All right, y'all. First one on the scene, have fun, but I'd be much obliged if you could get me resheveled and spruced up proper for company. Take all the time you want. I'll leave a couple spatulas and some duct tape and putty on the nightstand, and there's beer in the fridge.

Hormones: A Personal History

I've heard it said that an idle mind is the Devil's workshop. I don't know about that, but I do know that hormones are the Devil's nuclear arsenal. They start out small, edging into the game with spitwads and paintball. "Let's see about some hair," hormones begin, installing shrubbery here and there. That seems to go well, so they experiment with acne. "This will go away in a few years," hormones say, snickering. Hormones get a huge kick out of themselves. If it looks like they're going to run out of territory to plant pimples on, they manufacture a giant ass.

Once the landscape has had a chance to settle in for a while, they get into human outreach. At first they just take ordinary people close to you--mothers, fathers, people who had previously been kind and nurturing and lovable--and turn them into complete idiots. Eventually they make virtually everyone you know profoundly irritating. By the time thirty or forty years have rolled around, they are capable of taking a person who had previously been quite companionable and making him walk into a room--a room you had planned to be in, yourself--and make little cheerful whistly noises to the point where any reasonable person would want to rip his lips off. Throw in the  humming, and the incessant inquiries into your well-being, and there's not a jury in the world that would convict you, either.

Just about the time that life sweetens up a bit and the acne has consolidated into one or two recurring volcanic outposts in the center of your forehead, hormones put on the old thinking cap and work on new projects. "You know what would be fun," hormones say, "would be if we just started building big condos here in the abdomen. We can set up a few new arteries for the infrastructure and just have at it, what do you say?" And just like that, there you are with a whole sorority of fibroid tumors under development. "Where do you want one? Here? We've got room for one more if we shove it right up against the bladder." Hormones have no concept of zoning. They are total Republicans. No offense.

Then hormones begin zipping around the system like a spooked cat. The room of contentment? Boring. They zip to the Room of Righteous Indignation. Double back on the Trail of Tears to the Den of Unfocused Rage, rumpling up the carpet and sending knick-knacks of affection flying off the shelves. It's a rough time. They do not plan to leave without trashing the place. Some women have such difficulties with that last little party that they keep letting new hormones in just to mollify the bunch. I guess it works, although researchers warn that, over time, this increases the risk of death. Of course, they're not counting homicides.

I did not choose that route, opting instead to go without sleep for a few years and see what happened. And finally hormones made their exit, dangling for a while from a thicket of new chin-hairs before dropping off. They get your face all stretched out that way, but Lordy, it's nice and quiet.

Mysterious Ways

Thank you for visiting mylittlescienceblogspot.blogspot.com. It is my hope that by introducing research from my own backyard, I can help demustify the world of science, making it accessible to the general population; and in so doing, to banish, once and for all, scientific illiteracy, and replace it with a mild form of dyslexia.

Faithful readers may recall how I solved the puzzle of the missing possums around here (the raccoons ate them). You're welcome. It's just a simple matter of applying sound scientific principles to the evidence at hand (possums all gone; raccoons very, very fat). I am pleased to now bring you the results of my latest study.

As you may be aware, our local hummingbirds have all but disappeared. There are a few relics around, but the buzzing hordes of last year have gone away. Also gone are the jewel-like little dragonflies, sparkling in iridescent shades of blue and green. In place of both are alarmingly large and, frankly, unattractive dragonflies with feathered heads and military-style wing bars. They are zooming around here like black helicopters. Obviously, the dragonflies ate the hummingbirds.

In addition, it has been noted that the penstemons in the garden did not make it through the winter. These were the hummingbirds' favorite flowers, and they are no longer of any use, so, lo, they perished from the earth.

This is the simplest and most elegant solution that takes into account all the facts. That's what makes it science-y. As a science-ist, I must remind you that it is not true that things do not change, or even evolve. They do evolve, if in so doing they are able to become more of service to humans, who, all the data indicate, are the Crown of Creation. Hummingbirds, for instance, have been zipping around here for years like little chicken nuggets, but they're too hard to catch and fry up. They had to go. What we really needed was some sort of drone aircraft that could drop fury on our mortal enemies, and in another few years, our new dragonflies are going to be right there where we need them. I quote no less a science-ist than St. Paul: "And the shapes of the locusts were like unto horses prepared unto battle; and on their heads were as it were crowns like gold, and their faces were as the faces of men...and the sound of their wings was as the sound of chariots of many horses running to battle...and their power was to hurt men five months." Locusts? Dragonflies. Five months? Nine years and counting in Afghanistan. Same general idea, and translations are always a little dicey. What doesn't change is the fact that all of these things came into being in a blast of glory about six thousand years ago. There's already been a book written about that, so I won't go into it here.

Every scientific hypothesis takes the form of the statement "if this is true, then that will happen"--in other words, it is essentially a prophesy, and I'm all about the prophesies. The book previously referred to is full of them, which is why it is regarded as the premier science textbook for the ages. For instance, I give you: "The chariots shall rage in the streets, they shall justle one against another in the broad ways: they shall seem like torches, they shall run like the lightnings." And: "...chariots shall be as a whirlwind...Woe unto us! for we are spoiled." All of which, I submit, has come to pass. Ipso factoido, nanner-nanner, and boo-yah. I'm just saithin'.

So check back next post when I explain that climate change is a hoax perpetrated on a gullible public by people who don't want us to have any fun with our chariots. I'll get into the details later, but for now, ask yourselves: is it a coincidence that all the global-warming talk started at the same time the Baby Boom generation hit menopause? I think not.