Bitchery man Kevin was kind enough to forward me a press release about Four Weeks, an ezine tailored to the subscriber’s menstrual cycle. If your hormones are at a make-you-active stage, it’ll give you ideas for exercise. If your hormones are at a make-you-mellow stage, you get ways to unwind. If your hormones make you happy, clap your hands!
*crickets*
Anyway, I was monstrously amused by the concept, and I immediately started to wonder if we should start a similar ezine, wherein we tailor our romance recommendations for your cycle. Seriously: psycho hose beast? Do you want to seethe with rage at bad writing? We have some recommendations! Is it powerhouse superwoman time? We can bomb your pink scallop shell with some fine ass-kicking heroines.
Whaddya think!?
I can’t wait for that December issue, which will “include a 24-hour gift guide for men to correspond to the male 24-hour hormone cycle.”
According to hormonology, we guys have a hormone cycle too. And our hormone levels are highest right when we wake up.
Well, that would explain a certain involuntary morning occurrence.
I’m just trying to figure out what they did with the psycho hose-beast week page. I mean, I can honestly say “Mellow” is not one of my Lunar moods, you know?
I’ll go with “Indulgent. Introspective” if by that they mean “depressed, weeping into my 24 pound economy bag of M & M’s”, and “Exciting & Exotic” if they mean “horny as hell and nothing I or my man does helps.” But “Fun, Familiar”? “Cautious, Caring”? WTF are those about?
😆
Hormone Horoscope?!?
HAPPY HORMONE CYCLING!?!?!?!?!?
Are they shittin’ me?
These bear NO resemblance to real hormone cycles. Honestly, who on earth came up with this idea? And why weren’t they laughed out of the gene pool?
Yeah, I could use some recommendations for those “Don’t talk to me or I’ll kill you and leave me alone while I eat something evil and deep fried” days.
For some reason Jennifer Cruisie and J.D. Robb seem to be a good combination for those days.
Ha! That mag is amazingly optimistic.
It did remind me of being a kid though, and how my dad dealt with it. He marked the calendar, and around that time, would call us kids together and tell us to be nice to mom, or we’d all be sorry. What a man. My husband brings me ‘pms cookies’ (orange milanos) and cuts me lots of slack. I might be miserable, but I can’t complain about *that*.
Ok, upon reading into it, the titles of the weeks are what you should be doing, not how you feel.
Ok, I can deal with it now. Although I can still honestly say that Nurturing is still NOT one of my Lunar moods. Progesterone be damned.
Do they offer special subscriptions for the majority of women who don’t have a 28-day cycle? Or, Crom help us, the ladies who have really, really irregular cycles?
Besides, this is ageist. Post-menopausal women need love too!
“Which week are you on your cycle?”
Am I supposed to know this?
Lets hear for perimenopausal women too, please.
Gee, my 4th Week DIY would be more like how to assemble an AK-47 machine gun and how to always win at negotiations. 😉
Ranks right up there with those feminine hijinx ads that tell you to “Have a happy period.”
WTF??
I don’t know why, but that whole thing just makes me sad.
Hey, am I in my “sad” cycle and need a good dose of Polka music and happy-happy thoughts to cheer me up?
Please god, noooo!
Worst. Idea. Ever. Way to stereotype, folks. Bleeech. My life does not revolve around blood and the moons and my ‘mones, thanks.
Although I did like SB Sarah’s original offer—create a list of books for those days of the month when you just want to set someone on fire. Or those days when you feel like you can take over the world.
We’d definitely have to set our own “weeks” because some of that shit is too, too Pollyanna….
Wow. I must be overwrought. I just visited the link, saw the four different candy-coated apples and thought “Oh my God, am I supposed to know which apple corresponds to the week of my menstrual cycle? Because I don’t know!”
Time for a drink, methinks. That’s the kind of cycle week I am having.
I think I’m too old for this magazine…
Ways to unwind during that (ahem) not so fresh time of the month…
Hmmmm How about,
“Honey could you rub my feet…or get an ice pick in the temple while you sleep? Pretty Please?” she said, batting her lashes becomingly.
Though a nice selection of ass kickery romance heroines are great to read…with the foot rub.
(QUOTE)We’d definitely have to set our own “weeks†because some of that shit is too, too Pollyanna….(QUOTE)
Week 1 Thank god that’s over! Oh crap look at all the laundry! Fuck! Now was it cold water or hot to get all those stains out! That’s IT! i’m buying all black knickers!
Week 2 Finally I can fit into my pants again! Well almost
Week 3 “What do you mean i’m acting bitchy!? I’m fine, it’s you who are trying to pick a fight! I just can’t do ANYTHING to make you happy!”
Week 4 I can’t decided, Sweet, saltly, choclate or horny?
What about us pregnant people? I got hormones growing out of my ears!
I do not envy my husband in 10 years. I’ll be peri-meno and the girls will be entering puberty. No amoung of happy candy apples will solve that shit.
Where’s the week that you spend thinking, “Wait! My last cycle couldn’t have been five months ago! I’m only, what, 52?”
Followed by the week you spend looking up every site on the web that mentions estrogen.
I am in week one so I should:
1. Buy a diamond pendant – hubby just won’t go for that even with printed out proof.
2. Buy carmel apples – more economical but I just had a molar removed – no carmel for me this week.
3. Go to South Dakota and gamble. That thought has merit only if I get to leave the family and hubby behind. I probably wouldn’t tell them I am gone and they would also probably not even notice unless I took the grocery money with me.
4. Bake candy apple cupcakes with instructions long enough to need its own binding. I didn’t read all the directions because I stopped at—you will need a candy thermometer. Mine broke in the 80’s.
My game plan for pms is really simple.
1. Week 1 – chocolate
2. Week 2 – chocolate
3. Week 3 – chocolate
4. Week 4 – chocolate and potato chips. Preferably alterating between the two or better yet, chocolate covered potato chips. Or even the grossest thing I just love on week 4 is getting a Wendy’s chocolate frosty and dipping hot french fries in it. – just plain yuck but it works for me.
Allrighty, then…does this strike anyone else as the sort of thing “helpful” men do during one’s cycle that just makes you think what they really want to do is back away slowly (while trying not to show fear because they know that we can smell their fear!), get into the car, and peel out of the drive heading for Mexico at 100mph?
I may be generalizing a bit, but I really find these sorts of things both funny and unfortunate at the same time. I mean, really, we still live in a culture that’s too prudish to put RED water in maxi-pad ads, and they want to tell me how to manage my cycle to maximum efficiency when they can’t even get the color right?! Hmmm…I had rather a strong reaction to that one. Must be my “kill all them’s that needs killin’ part of my cycle”. I think I’ll read something with either a Viking in it…or perhaps a pirate. I’m not yet sure. 🙂
<blockquote>Do they offer special subscriptions for the majority of women who don’t have a 28-day cycle? Or, Crom help us, the ladies who have really, really irregular cycles?
I’m on week 7. I’m only 26. (In theory it’d be great to only have a period every other month but in practice it sucks.) This ezine is moronic. How handy they believe they can slap us all in homogonized categories.
Oh, and my husband’s way of coping when it finally does come around and the back aches and general nasty feelings make me a psychopath? Suggest we go for a drive and sneakily turn my seat warmer up to five.
I mean, really, we still live in a culture that’s too prudish to put RED water in maxi-pad ads, and they want to tell me how to manage my cycle to maximum efficiency when they can’t even get the color right?! (Joanna)
Oh god, yes! I mean, I know it is said that some people have ‘blue blood’ (the water is blue in Dutch ads), but that’s not to be taken literally.
You know, back before my food allergy ruined all my fun, when I was PMS’ing I used to go to IHOP, get chocolate chip pancakes (this was in back in the day when they actually put chocolate chips in, not just cocoa in the batter), extra crispy hash browns, salt those suckers up til my Mom’s blood pressure soared in sympathy, and make a sandwich out of the pile. Mmmmm. There’s something so soothing about the salt and the sweet and the crunch all together. 🙂 Nowadays, I just fry the taters up crispy and put the chocolate chips in directly. Like big, chocolate chip potato cookies. With lots of salt!
And my nephew does the fries in the frosty thing, too. I’m pretty sure 7 year old boys don’t fall prey to PMS, so I suspect it’s just something some people like. *Gallic shrug*
My little password thingie is “nature 57.” 😆 How appropos!
Except for the first one, those caramel apples look really…wrong.
My cycle is fairly standard: five days out of the month, I am kept away from all pointy metal objects and credit cards.
Cautious and Caring, my water retaining fanny.
‘I mean, really, we still live in a culture that’s too prudish to put RED water in maxi-pad ads, and they want to tell me how to manage my cycle to maximum efficiency when they can’t even get the color right?! (Joanna)’
Is it just me, or do you flinch when the chick in the one ad, to prove how dry it is, slaps it up against her dress?
I KNOW it’s just water, but I still have the ‘eww’ reaction.
I’d go broke trying to follow that stupid thing’s suggestion for *one* week, let alone four.
Speaking of going broke, I don’t buy tampons or pads any more – check this out: http://www.thekeeper.com/ Highly recommended. (And there’s some silicone thing for the ladies with rubber allergies.)
If you can manage tampons, you can manage the keeper, and it’s kind of squickily fun to be able to see how much you *actually* bleed in the course of a cycle.
{And, of course, it terrified my boyfriend, who’s certain I’m involved in some kind of Voudoun blood practices. ;))
I’m not sure if it scares him more or less than my threatening to steal babies wherever they are found if he doesn’t let me have one, then calmly discussing (two days later) all the things I want to do before settling down with children. 8-/
‘If you can manage tampons, you can manage the keeper, and it’s kind of squickily fun to be able to see how much you *actually* bleed in the course of a cycle.’
I’m one of those people who would handle their menstrual hygiene products with tongs if possible, so that concept went straight to squicky for me.
Though that would come in handy for swimming.
So I take it you never tried the menstral sponge?
‘So I take it you never tried the menstral sponge?’
Oh, Lord, no.
Oh man. Never. Not sponge, not suction cup. Not even a tampon.
There’s only one thing I want inside me and it does not relate to the menstrual cycle, unless he’s kinky that way.
Go Kiku! I switched to cloth pads a few months ago & it’s made a huge difference. Shorter less painful phsyco sessions each month & more money to buy strange candy apples & diamond jewellery. 🙂
I think the next improvement to that site should be zodiac – you need to buy/do specific things each week according to star sign…
I tried the cup thing … didn’t work for me. 🙁 The blood wasn’t a problem. I have a way retroverted uterus and it makes it impossible to get things like that or the nuvaring in there. If I did manage to get it far enough in to keep from kicking it right back out, I’d never be able to get it back out. I can barely use tampons. I can only handle those slim fits and I still have a hard time with them.
I am pretty hard to live with for three weeks out of the month. My hormones go all wacky and I’m just the psycho chick from hell. My poor husband just plies me with midol, chocolate and salty chips. I’ve got to say that my period has been less of a hassle since having kids. Less cramping, shorter and lighter all around. Although I do get hornier during my period than I used to.
When my period has me feeling all grump-assed what I really like is the fluffy romances with no great conflicts and where everyone gets their HEA. It keeps me from getting any more aggro than I already am.
Whoa, I’ve lived a sheltered life.
Sponges? Keeper? La Cup?
And here I thought of myself a liberated woman with my tampons and bleached hair.
A sponge, though…
*eeeekkk*
Don’t worry about the sponges. They were a 70’s thing right after the first toxic shock cases were connected to tampons.
I guess you probably really don’t want to know how Roman soldiers used a sponge on a stick soaked in vinegar instead of toilet paper?
Thought not.
When I first glanced at the DIY page with the spade, awl (?), whisk, and mallet on the side, I thought they were weapons lined up, like in Buffy’s Wall Cabinet of Mayhem.
Maybe my mind was led in that direction because I was clicking on the link that said “5 scientifically-proven ways to boost your mood instantly”?
“I can’t believe this violence in mind.”
—Tori Amos, “Waitress”