Category: Ink Spatterings

Hemingway on Perimenopause

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An encore post

I have hunted lions. I have watched the sun rise on days when I was certain the world was ending and drunk enough whiskey to be sure of it. I have fought against the marlin, an enormous wet metaphor for my masculinity.

All of it was nothing compared to perimenopause.

I am a man, a matter of some regret in this context. I have observed and made notes. They are incomplete, as all honest accounts are.

It is unknowable, this Red Ledger of Womanhood, but I will explain it anyway.

Perimenopause, a word with too many vowels, is from the Latin for “the threshold between fertility and glorious cronehood.” It is a time when ovaries, like exhausted grenadiers, abandon their post and estrogen evaporates. Much like absinthe, for which it is also time.

Don’t bother deciphering if it’s happening or not happening. Most things halfway happen. You will know when you find yourself crying inexplicably in the grocery store as “Landslide” plays.

Having set down my credentials plainly, it remains only to tell you how it is in the borderlands between the era of spring-loaded hormones and the years that follow, which are less buoyant by degrees.

These are the things that must be endured:

  • Insomnia: The nights are the first to betray you. You will lie awake counting your regrets and your nemeses as a fisherman counts his catch, except you will throw nothing back. In the mornings you will feel like you’ve been hollowed out with a grapefruit spoon.
  • Bleeding: It will happen without pattern or mercy. It will lull you into complacency, then strike with malice. Like when you’re on your boss’s white office sofa. Do not speak of it to your boss. They can only pretend not to notice, and the awkwardness is yours alone. Soon enough, you will get to not miss this.
  • Hot flashes: A traitorous inner furnace ignites when you least expect it, which is to say, always. You will feel a powerful urge to strip naked in public and become visibly furious at the air. There is no dignified way to do this.
  • Moods: They will rise and fall like monsoon squalls. You will slam doors, then return and apologize. You will disassociate as the dermatologist removes questionable moles. You will bellow at the toaster if its settings are untrue. Know you are not hurtling toward operatic collapse. Probably.
  • Carousel of Other Indignities: Everything negative and mysterious you experience from now on is perimenopause. Physical discomfort. Metabolic chaos. That asshole who cut you off in traffic. Thinning hair. Itchy earlobes. People telling you to “let that sink in.” The betrayal of your bladder when you sneeze. Chi-Chi’s vague promise to reopen. Anything that causes the urge to hurl a shoe at someone indiscreetly.

You will seek a system to manage it all. It will fail because everything happens anyway. You will be tempted to try yoga, catalogue your ordeals in a leather-bound journal, or fill your online shopping cart with items terrible and proud.

Do none of this. If you must, cry behind a rack of discounted shapewear at T.J. Maxx. They’ve seen it all at T.J. Maxx. Just do not purchase the waist cincher. You will despise it.

Steel your resolve and proceed.

I hope to leave you with something other than recommendations to age gracefully. Perhaps punch a sandbag and, as you enter this season of dissolving composure, remember: it will pass.

When? A few months. A decade. Maybe longer than Friends, certainly not longer than Grey’s Anatomy. Don’t try to track it. Uncertainty is part of the process.

I warn you so you won’t be startled when chin hairs sprout like a godforsaken harvest. Fortunately, the forgetting will also begin, and you’ll be left holding tweezers. You will tweeze nothing. You will remember again when you touch your chin and wonder when you became late 1970s Barry Gibb. Those colorless bastards will be nearly impossible to remove. Your eyesight will also have gone to shit.

The point is, this is not the end of all things. Soon enough you will be alone with your pulse and the knowledge that no part of you was ever permanent except that tattoo you got one ill-fated evening with a guy known only as “Little Bowser.”

Perimenopause is natural. Also intolerable. This is the paradox you will ponder as you cry under the Zombie Wasteland Sewer Tunnel at any given Spirit Halloween.

That is the sum of it.

Now go and swoop through the world like a hormonally-imbalanced falcon, taking sweaty dominion over it all.

Or go punch a sandbag.

I Yelled at a Bird

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On Writing While Having Ears

Simple graphic with a cartoon woodpecker on the left, facing right. To the right of the bird, the title reads ‘I Yelled at a Bird’ in large black letters. Below it, the subtitle says ‘On Writing While Having Ears.’ At the bottom left, in smaller gray text, it says ‘by Jackie Pick.’ The background is white and uncluttered

The other morning, I yelled at a bird. He was pecking at the side of my house right outside my office like he was trying to Morse-code Infinite Jest into the drywall.

In his defense, that’s his job. He’s a woodpecker. Nominative determinism at its most bloggable.

In my defense, I was attempting to write. That’s (allegedly) my job. Writing requires concentration, intention, structure, and little-to-no bird drama.

Inspired by Maya Angelou, I woke early to try to be one of those Excellent Writers™ who catch the Be-Brilliant-Doing-The-Writing-Thing motes that supposedly float through the dawn.

Well, I woke up early. The “Be-Brilliant-Doing-The-Writing-Thing” is more Dr. Angelou’s domain.

Early morning, it turns out, is when my brain picks at itself then presents a show called Every Mistake I’ve Ever Made and Also Let’s Workshop Future Ones! There are musical numbers and everything.

An imperfect start to the day, but at least it’s terrible.

I do not write first thing, although I get organized. Coffee focuses me enough to craft a to-do list. Then I’m organized and stressed. This counts as multitasking.

These last few weeks, the woodpecker has been clocking in by 7:00 a.m. I call him The Contractor. I should call him Sir Aneurysm Incoming.

As a writer (allegedly), I’m supposed to observe the delicate, shimmering miracle of existence. And I want to. I try to. It’s hard to notice anything other than the bird face-hammering my office wall into dust.

The household wakes.

There is one rule to getting teenagers out the door: engage only when summoned. It’s best not to care out loud. But I do. Catastrophically. Usually by saying “good morning.”

You can count the syllables in their sighs.

There are daily logistics to coordinate with my husband: forms, appointments, who is attending to which child where, who is giving the dishwasher emotional support, and …wait, we’re out of ketchup?

Before my workday starts, I’ve absorbed everyone’s emotions because my empathy is an open-concept floor plan. Add to that the simmering impatience of the man in the Subaru behind us who believes my insufficient acceleration jeopardizes the spirit of American progress. I fear he will tailgate one or both of us directly into another dimension.

Sir, I am driving a practical mid-size SUV, and I am doing my best.

I do not want to ruin his day until he honks.

Finally, I sit to write. Whither my Muse?

My Muse is draped across the couch, wearing my robe and eating pastries. “You’ve got this,” she says, waving strudel in my general direction.

This is unhelpful.

At its core, writing is solving one small problem only to discover it was guarding a nest of larger, slipperier ones tangled in a Gordian knot of plot and character and the ability to put words in some kind of order.

It is noble, irritating labor.

I can do noble, irritating labor. Muse-less, even.

Tap. Tap. Taptaptaptap.

Just as I consider offering the woodpecker a co-writing credit if he’d please shut up, my neighbor steps into his backyard to practice trumpet. Backyard trumpet. Right by my office.

Then someone revs a car engine like they’re summoning the ghost of Vin Diesel (who, it should be noted, is not dead).

This does not deter the woodpecker. He is a professional. He should take up writing.

I’ve read the Internet. It says that if I were truly committed to my craft, I would simply not hear all the noise.

Yes. Thank you. I hadn’t considered the bold strategy of not having ears.

Look, distraction is not always avoidance. Sometimes attention goes to the loud thing because the thing is loud.

The world is committed to being loud. I am committed to being a Good Enough Writer™ who li — aaaand now leafblowers are forming some sort of demented quartet with the backyard trumpet-noodling neighbor.

Taptaptaptap.

I opened the window.

“Bird! Stop!”

Quiet.

It felt good. I added “Deal with woodpecker” to my to-do list, then crossed it off.

Except…

I yelled at a bird.

This doesn’t make me feel observant of the delicate, shimmering miracle of existence.

It makes me feel like an asshole. The sort of asshole whose command of language evaporates under pressure, leaving me with nothing but “Bird! Stop!”

I wandered over to the couch for reassurance from my Muse. She shook an empty bag of kettle chips at me, wanting a refill.

Tap. Tap. Taptaptaptap.

That bird’s Muse is clearly better than mine.

A Modest Proposal for the Preservation of Civilization by Means of Group Chats

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Encompassing but not limited to text chains, Messenger threads, WhatsApp dramas, Facebook comment kerfuffles, and similar circles of digital grievance.

It is a melancholy object, to those who dare attempt discourse, when they find conversations derailed by nuance, muddied with civility, or — ye gods! — conducted in person. Face-to-face conversations are notoriously unreliable, as they often involve people saying things that sound suspiciously like what they mean.

In this smoldering age, politicians argue, institutions creak, and somewhere, someone is inventing a new kind of paperwork.

I think it is agreed by all sensible parties (and at least three committees who have been trying to adjourn since 2006) that the sheer multiplicity of human communication is a public menace. Who amongst us has not endured the inefficiency of speech, the peril of eye contact, or the muppety flapping of arms to emphasize a point? No politician, pundit, or professor can preserve us.

Therefore, I modestly propose (usually preferable to immodestly proposing) that the group chat be the model and indeed the mechanism by which all of society is preserved. All communication, be it domestic, political, or sextual, should be confined henceforth to group texts, Facebook comment threads, and other online bitching arenas. All comments can be observed, recorded, and weaponized as needed. I propose these places not because they’re good, but because they’re reliably bad, which these days is the closest thing we have to safe.

We have already seen its power. A PTA chat of fifteen mothers and one father who replies “sounds good” can coordinate massive amounts of allergen-free snacks with more efficiency than the Pentagon deploys aircraft. A college roommate chat can process four marriages, two divorces, and one regrettable tattoo with fewer delays than family court. A midnight “you up?” has sparked (and derailed) more talks than Geneva.

By my best calculations, a group text of six to thirty-seven people, on a topic of no importance or clarity, can continue for weeks without resolution yet with feigned enthusiasm, thus bonding the community like poorly-set epoxy. Likewise, a Facebook thread can be expected to produce on average 142 comments: 118 bad-faith accusations, 17 GIFs, and 7 people sincerely attempting to help. They will be ignored. Surely these numbers demonstrate the efficiency of the system. Surely, also they demonstrate the futility of resistance.

Also, I posit with the mathematical certainty of one who regularly zoned out in algebra class, that for every one thousand “k” reactions, at least five international conflicts may be prevented. Gross domestic happiness would increase by twelve percent.

Of course, rules must be clear: no muting, no leaving, no sneaking off to Buffalo Wild Wings for in-person jibber jabber. Every meme circulated thrice shall acquire the force of law.

Should anyone run afoul of these rules, the penalty shall be immediate banishment to an uncomfortably governmental Signal chat.

Some will cry out that this proposal reduces sincerity, nuance, and basic human decency. To which I reply with all possible graciousness: obviously. Have you met people? And have we not already reduced all discourse to bloviating, grievances, and emojis? I merely propose a proper filing system.

Others may object in favor of email, to which I say: That way lies madness. Group texts are the last good ship on the sea, and if we are to survive, we had better climb aboard. (Also, just admit it: your Gmail is a Mausoleum of the Unread.)

A third objection may be raised, that conversation face-to-face is preferable. This, in theory, I cannot deny; yet in practice, it has already ruined civilization, whereas the group text has not yet had the opportunity.

I profess sincerely that I have no personal stake in this. I have been ejected from three group chats, ignored in countless threads, and endured the indignity of someone attempting to mute me in person with a TV remote. My only motive is the preservation of civilization by its last remaining instrument: the perpetual ding of notification