The freight train to menopause... Part II

So I went in for a normal checkup with my doctor. That was his expectation. I knew there'd be more.

Carole: "So I really need something for all of this."

Doc: "All of what?"

Carole: "These raging, maniacal hormones. They're running amok, Doc. Look at this! (I point to my acne ridden face.) Last week I got in a fight with an avocado that wasn't ripe enough for my craving. I'm losin' it!"

Doc: He laughs, but then in his ever-prescient tone, "Carole, this is all normal. It's just the process."

"It" is a reference to menopause.
Lovely.

I strolled out of there with my prescriptions in hand and waved goodbye to the nurse who has "befriended" me. That's in quotations because let's be honest, we're not really friends. We just share laughs about how every time I come in and she asks me when my last menstrual cycle cycled on through, I respond with "three weeks ago." After she got that same answer seven weeks in a row she told me she knew exactly what my problem was - I was packed FULL of shit.

No, actually, I'm packed full of wholly unpredictable hormones firing at will, with a little useless trivia thrown in for fun. (The Golden Girls premiered in 1985! The heaviest element is Uranium!)

The best thing to come out of all of this? I now know what it's like to be a fifteen-year-old boy. Uncontrollable hormones that have caustic outcomes. Thanks to this perimenopause onset I experience the following:

1) Misplaced rage and an increased combative nature. Case in point: The aforementioned avocado story. We seriously got into a fight. An avocado and me. I yelled at it. ? Then, with a coolness that can only come with being a victor of war - I ate it, jabbing the sucker with my fork to ensure it knew I'd won. (Sybil?)

2) Men are strangely attractive, even when they're not. I think that actually makes me a homosexual teenage boy if we stick with the analogy from above. Anyhoo, it's not that I don't find men attractive in an excessive hormone-free world, it's just that I didn't appreciate the sheer number of hot y chromosomes strutting around. My usual standards were thrown out the window (too short, too tall, too stupid and listens to tween pop on his ipod) and suddenly everyone, in the words of Marlon Brando, coulda been a contender.

3) "Are you going to eat that?" has become my mantra. I have never been so hungry, never ever, not even when I managed to do things like exercise or let's be honest, extend any sort of physical effort whatsoever.

4) And.....ahhh.... Teenage Acne. Oh yes. The malfunction at Skin and Pore Streets was just a taste of what was to come. And apparently is still coming. It's awesome and very teenagery. So if we follow that out to its logical conclusion, that means the acne actually makes me look YOUNGER. I have found the secret to eternal youth. Spread the word.

So back to the drugstore I went for some sort of zit cream.
No way I am using that cream-turned-disaster from the last episode. You remember: Holy balls my face is on fire. ? yea, that one.
http://carolesharpless.blogspot.com/2010/12/mountain-and-molehill.html

So tonight I went to the drugstore because my head was about to explode, right behind my left eyeball, throbbing away like someone was pinging it with a ball peen hammer, and I’m perusing the skin care section, like you do, because I’m nearly forty fricking years old and I’ve got teenage fricking acne on my cheeks (wtf, can we not grow out of this? Am I being punished for my clear skin as a teenager? For all the times I just thought people weren’t washing their face enough? Dear Universe: I’M SORRY I WAS A TEENAGE IDIOT. PLEASE DO NOT HOLD ME RESPONSIBLE FOR MY UNEDUCATED VIEWS OF THE ACNE-RIDDEN.)

So I’m looking around and I notice this thing on the top shelf, mainly because the price has three numbers in it and I think, 'Holy Cupcake, what kind of skin care regimen has three numbers before the decimal sign comes in to play'? And it’s this device thingamuwatchit and it zaps the zits with it’s hot hot heat and I WANT IT.

I looked at the reviews on Amazon and everyone’s all, “love it!” and “can’t get enough!” and “would make out with it if I could!” And I’m thinking, you know, I just might buy this. This is self-esteem in a mechanical device! Plus, it’s a gadget, and I can get away with buying stupid crap because THAT’S WHAT I DO. If not for my uncontrollable quirks (hello, I’m looking at you, Miss Jane Fonda workout strippercize VHS video set) I would be just a regular human with the rather obvious and odious problem of not cleaning out my vehicle enough.

It's been quite a day...