On: Sea sponge tampons

So my cycle is wrapping up for the month and I just wanted to share with you my thoughts on green menstrual products. Though I've considered it for a long time, this was the first month that I've forgone disposable products in favor of the reusable sort and while it took some getting used to, I must say I'm totally converted.

You see, many of the women in my family suffer from reproductive disorders (cysts, cancers, early menopause, etc.) and so I'm very cautious with my delicates (so far so good!). Synthetic fiber tampons, nylon pads, chemical douches and whatnot all seem like the best way to upset what nature's already figured out. But on a practical note, I'm a very active person who needs a reliable and user-friendly answer to the green movement. In comes, Sea Pearls, a sea sponge tampon that's completely natural and organically harvested. At $11/pair and a life span of up to 6 months, these tampons are the perfect answer to my personal financial crisis.

The first day was a bit messy, but the rest of the week went on without a hitch. The sponges are about the size of small kiwi fruit, but soft and spongy... like a sponge. Once inserted, they feel like a tampon would and soak up about as much as a tampon would. Removing them can be tricky and simply requires practice. By the third day, I'd sewn waxed thread through them to streamline my bathroom breaks. I bought two pairs for convenience, rising of a used tampon, placing it in a ziplock, and inserting a new one. At the end of each day, I soaked them in a tea tree oil and water solution to disinfect them and let them air dry, popping them in my purse the next morning. Simple.

I saved some money and the planet this month. Go me! The most unexpected benefit has been the tea tree oil's soothing quality. I only used a few drops at a time, but the results were noticeable. This was definitely a calmer, more rejuvenating period.

Next month, I'll be trying the Moon Cup for comparison. I'm a little nervous about it, but it'll be interesting to see just how much blood and other stuff I'm losing each month. Kind of like a science project. Stay tuned...

View blog reactions

New Photos at Coney Island!

I found a photographer on Model Mayhem a few weeks ago, and I really dig her work. We met up and took new pics at Coney Islan (which I'm a ashamed to say I hadn't visited since I was about 7 years old). I gotta say, chemistry is everything! Though she was polite, we just didn't click and I was uncomfortable and I think you can see that in the pictures. She's young, so I'll cut her some slack, but I was really disappointed by the number of useless shots I ended up with and the number of imperfections in the workable shots. Take a look and leave your thoughts.

View blog reactions

I've started running again

I've started running again. I ran two and a half miles last night and I begin a twelve-week 5K training today. Lately, I'm not too happy with my condition--mentally and physically. Running helps me clear my head. I dance and sing and just have a good time running solo.

View blog reactions

random chatter: matters of love, looks and mammaries

He finally materialized... out of no where mind you. I can't imagine ever doing that to someone... just up and disappearing. I know I agreed to let it be open, no labels=no disappointments, but it's not working too well for me. I'm so tired of contradicting myself. I want out for good. Now I just need to find the guts to say exactly that, mean it, and be happy with the resolution.

I have a casting on Saturday. Not through UGLY (a *whole* other post), but through Craigslist. I don't know what gave me the idea that I could possibly be a model of any sort. I'm super ordinary and I'm not particularly photogenic, but I like playing dress up and I like the idea of making money without actually doing anything adding any extracurriculars to my already insane schedule. It's for a Brooklyn-based clothing company. The posting said they're looking for "exotic models". I sent my vitals and some photos in, and I got an invitation to the casting. I have no hope of actually landing the gig. I'm not even sure if or how well it pays. But I figure I don't have anything to lose.

Right now I'm tired.

Doctor appointment at 9am tomorrow. I'm seeing the breast specialist. She's going to tell me that I can either take another course of antibiotics or have surgery. It's a dilated duct. I think I'll eventually have to get it removed anyway. I'm sad about that... mostly because I know I've done it t myself.

Bummer indeed.

View blog reactions

On: Diagnosing the twins (part deux) or It turns out I was over reacting

I went to get a sonogram this afternoon. I had a mini breakdown on Monday when I went online to research the possible causes of my once pussing and now bleeding nipple. Breast cancer was the first choice on every site I visited. It's funny how fear can totally blur one's ability to think rationally. Of course a nipple piercing can't cause cancer and all logical signs point to a low level infection or a simple blockage of normal fluid, possibly scar tissue, that's erupted. Both a nuisance, but both generally harmless. And so, I've worried myself over nothing really. The doctor says I should just wait it out, that it's likely to go away on it's own, and that it's not necessary to operate on it. pheeeww!

View blog reactions

On: Diagnosing the twins

I have to get a sonogram. She said it was an infection, I took the pills and nothing changed. The doctor said she'll have to remove the hard bit whatever the results are, but she wants to be sure of what the thing is. I don't want surgery. I don't want anyone coming near my precious tits with a sharp object. 

I'm scared.

View blog reactions

On: Losing the twins or I'm overreacting

I've adopted a habit of writing, when ever possible, whatever thoughts come to mind in my notebook and letting them develop on the pages. When it isn't convenient to whip it out, I try to focus on one thought long enough for the ideas to jell. I get annoyed when people say they have ADD. I lump ADD in the same category as Santa Clause and the Easter Bunny. I think, for myself, my creative energy is blocked and so my thoughts just sort of pile up on top of themselves, half complete and fleeting.

It's been an invaluable help. I've made myself a loose five-year plan and thought through my ultimate life goals. I've created a to-do list with ultimatums and such. I've made a growing list of reoccurring thoughts for meditation. I feel like peace is not far away.

I found something strange behind my left nipple yesterday. It's feels like a hardened duct. It doesn’t appear on my right breast. I was petrified at once, nerves humming, heart rate gaining momentum. Had I done this to myself? The moment my mother discovered my jewelry, she blurted that I'd get cancer. Nonsense, I thought then. After three years, the piercing has not totally healed. I have no pain, no discomfort. As coincidence would have it, the strange thing sits on the left side of my breast, the same side as the hole in my nipple that hasn’t healed. My family has a laundry list of hereditary ailments, both harmless (bunions, dry skin, excess hair) and depressive (sickle cell anemia, stomach ulcers, uterine cysts). My father may have died of lung cancer, his mother lost a seven-year battle against breast cancer. I wrote the following thought as it came to me on the express train to work this morning:

I'm not so much worried about dying too soon as I am about losing a body part or an organ, something close to me that I've grown to know and love. I love my breasts and the thought of losing them makes me sad. What could replace them? I'm scared of the end of affection, and of living abnormally, or of carrying more secrets, being even more self-conscious. "Dying is easy, it's living that's pain" (lyric from Cotton Eyed Joe by Terry Callier); that unstoppable train, its chugging and whistling still faint in the far, far distance, to come into view some day, any day. Inevitable, no matter the protests. I'll make peace when she comes. I just don't want a difficult life in the mean time.

My goal is to leave this earth with all my pieces. I pray that I can look back at my life and tell the people who have come to say goodbye that I was happy and that I did not fail at life, that I was a success.

View blog reactions

Meditation #4,855 or Agnis & Roco

Every few days I get this heaviness in my upper back and it wraps around over my shoulders to tighten the flat part of my chest, then it pulls up the two hard columns on the back of my neck, traipses behind my ears, past the sides of my skull to land somewhere behind my eyes where it tries to escape by stabbing at them. It marches on this crisscross path for a couple of hours, sometime an entire day, back and forth, hard and heavy. The length of my neck has shrunken and it pitches my head forward, so that I have to look down at my feet. I almost hunch. I think it's where all my stress lives. In two large knots that sit just in the hollow bowls behind my collarbones, on either side of my neck. The right is bigger than the left; my left generally hurts less than my right; my right shoulder hangs lower than my left. Magic fingers, big shivering chairs in the mall, little rubber hammers made in China, tennis balls – none have done much to relieve me of them. I think of them as the good and bad sides of my ego. Like in movies, when an angel and a demon show up on a character’s shoulders just in time to help him make a hard decision. Except mine just sit there mute and lazy, fattening up on candy coated McDonalds Happy Meals and Super-sized diet energy drink, while I carry their weight and figure things out on my own. I wish I could shake ‘em off, or get them scooped out.

View blog reactions