Possibly TMI

...and my apologies if this skeeves you out, but...

my period is due soon and when I get it I will officially have been menstruating for...drum roll, please...

TWENTY FRICKIN' YEARS!

I was reading the "Best of" section of Craig's List and someone posted something about tampons and that's when I realized it. Aunt Flo first came to visit me on my twelfth birthday. I remember it like yesterday. I had read Our Bodies Ourselves, the real groovy seventies edition with lots of full-on bush shots of various and sundry hippie ladies, and I knew what to expect. I also pretty well knew the non-Dutch definition of the word "dyke" and that people occasionally liked to insert things like candles and tubular vegetables into various and sundry bodily orifices.

I called to my Mom from the bathroom, who was watching tv on the antique horsehair sofa that we eventually sold. It took several tries to get her in to help me; I was not going out to see her.

Then I called my friend Gabby Perry. I think ole' Gabs already had gotten her period. She did everything first, including smoking and drinking and having a baby as a teenager. Wait, I never did that last bit. Anyhoo, she was the more worldly one.

I also remember my McGrammy telling me as I was going upstairs to play "Brady Bunch" with my multitude of cousins "Congratulations on becoming a woman." I turned beet red and mumbled a shy thanks.

I think that now I finally am a woman, twenty years later.

So here's to you, special monthly lady friend! May you continue to bring me moodiness and blotation, backaches and Mcgassiness, and of course the ability to bear children, for many moons to come.