As I was telling you last time, I had to go to the doctors. Since I havent got cancer any more, I have to have something else to whine about (obviously) so Ive chosen to whine about the Menopause Truck that ran me over and then reversed back over my lifeless corpse a coupla times just for good measure. I cant have anything with hormones in it, like HRT, so I thought Id have a wee chat with my doctor to see if she could suggest some alternative which might lessen the murderous mood swings and the flagging libido and the insomnia and the weight gain and the hot flushes so intense that they have me absentmindedly looking around for possible sources of combustion as I have been known to set myself on fire by accident once or twice in my life (never try to light your cigarette from a gas hob, girls and boys � particularly if its the 1980s and your hair is 95% hairspray. Oh, and rinsing out nylon underwear and trying to dry it under the grill whilst drunk isn�t a very good idea either).
Anyway, I digress. I had a good old moan to my doctor as she is quite nice and about my age and I thought she might know of something I hadn�t thought of. Sadly, I am quite good at doing my own research and she had nothing much to offer, especially once I�d told her about the �helpful� advice on the cancer support website � did you know, ladies, that it might be useful, when one is having a hot flush, to open a window or to try wearing lightweight clothing. OMIGOODNESS, that�s where Ive been going wrong � wearing an anorak and salopettes indoors and hiding in the airing cupboard. *tssk* silly me.
I was trying to explain about the libido thing because, to be honest, that�s the thing that is bothering me the most but that made me a bit upset (mostly because I think she thought I was joking � honestly, are people not supposed to actually like having sex?) and then, of course, once I�d got upset she knew exactly what to do and prescribed me two sorts of anti-depressants. Once type to get rid of the hot flushes � they kind of do, I still get them but they aren�t so intense. And one type to help with the sleeping. They kind of do help with the sleeping in that I can usually get off to sleep OK if I take them and if I wake up in the night I can usually get back to sleep again, which is a definite improvement on staring at the curtains for eight hours and getting up again. But the day after I take them I cant actually function as a human being which isn�t ideal, what with having to go to work and be a teacher and all that kind of thing. Oh, and the ones for the flushes make me really light headed and spaced out, to the extent that I had to tell my friend at work that I thought I had an inner ear infection as I was staring blankly into space and swaying slightly and I didn�t want to have to tell her I was taking anti-depressants. Don�t get me wrong, I would be cool with telling her that if I was suffering from depression, but Im not. And telling someone youre taking anti-depressants to help with hot flushes just sounds like a big fat lie. Like that slutty girl at school whose mum puts her on the pill �to help with her periods�.
Well, to cut a long story short � and before you think this has turned into one of those diaryland diaries that is just a big long list of �meds and why I take them� � Im going to go back and tell the doctor I don�t want the hot flush medicines any more because they don�t make enough of a difference for me to carry on taking them and Im keeping the sleeping ones just for Friday nights, when its OK to spend the next day (just as I did this Saturday) yawning, wearing sweatpants, standing up and then forgetting what I was going to do and sitting down again and watching endless back-to-back episodes of Man v Food instead of actually going and making myself something to eat. I think hot flushes and being a moody cow is infinitely better than the zombie-twilight world that comes with a cocktail of Amitriptyline and Fluoxezine.
So, in case you were wondering about the title of this post, its my highly amusing take on Friday Night Is Music Night , which only English people �of a certain age� will have heard of. Bite me.
Oh, and the libido thing seems to be something of a work in progress, which L tried to cure the other night by wedging his boner in between my arse cheeks like the particularly gristly frank in the saggy bun of a decidedly unappetising hotdog. Needless to say, the insomnia meant that even though it was 05:20 I wasn�t quite as asleep as he thought I was, but I carried on the pretence for some considerable time while he tried to �wake me up� (heh heh heh) and then was forced to do some kind of horrifically unconvincing Sleeping Beauty type awakening once Id got bored of the game and wanted to get on to the actually sexy-time part which I needed to be awake for (otherwise its just creepy). One added bonus is that L now thinks he has some kind of shagadelic superpower when, in actual fact, it was just a case of �right place, right time� with the added bonus of me not having to bother to be encouraging through the beginning bit, on account of being �asleep� and all. Speaking in all seriousness for a mo, if y�all good people of diaryland do know of any libido-enhancing tricks, pleeeeeeease feel free to share�oh, and I don�t mean the kind of �helpful advice� which appears on the cancer website, OB-vi-ously, as I have already explored the realms of �holding hands whilst walking together� and �a warm bath followed by a sensual massage� as a means to �be intimate� thanks very much. I just want to get my horniness back so I can shake the ornaments off the bedside cabinets, like I used to.
Started the new bit of my job last week and it seems to be going kind of OK. Only one major hiccup, when I didn�t have the work for a Year 9 (14 year olds) Citizenship class. The head of dept gave me a Powerpoint slide show just before the lesson started and I didn�t have time to view it first so I saw each slide as it came up on the screen. I don�t know what I would have done differently if I had advance warning that I was leading a discussion topic on HIV/AIDS and safe sex but hey, it seemed to go alright. On a side topic, one of the boys told me it would be �too embarrassing� to go into a shop and buy condoms. I invited him to decide whether it was more embarrassing to have to tell his mum that he�d got a girl pregnant.
Jooj and I had a little conversation on the topic of The Epitome of a First World Problem. She came up with this little gem:
Texas Barbecue Pringles are always too flavoury on one side. They should supply them with a little brush so you can brush off some of the flavour dust.
(she also did a little vignette along the lines of �Oh whhhyyyyyyy are my Pringles so FLAAAAAAVOURYYYYY??? Aaaaaarrrgggghhh! Will this torment never END?� but you can add your own dramatic representation if you wish).
Oh, and Happy New Year! My NYE was horrific and I dont want to talk about it. To be honest it perfectly rounded off a very shitty year INDEED. Here's to 2013 being, if not good, then at least less shit.
later
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