Men Live Longer Because They Are Men

Men live longer because they are men. Men have less stress in their lives. And men have NO clue. You know why? They take for granted the time that they would be spending doing the easiest, human, mundane tasks IF they were a woman. It's JUST NOT FAIR (said in a whiney voice while stomping my feet around). So I'm going to bitch about it.

First item: going to the bathroom. For arguments sake, we are NOT going to talk about going number two.

Man In Public Bathroom

• Step 1 - Walk up to urinal, maybe go into stall and lock.
• Step 2 - Fly down.
• Step 3 - Whip it out.
• Step 4 - Pee.
• Step 5 - Shake and tap.
• Step 6 - Zip up.
• Step 7 - Unlock stall or skip this step if using urinal.
• Step 8 - Wash hands. We all hope.

Woman In Public Bathroom

• Step 1 - Go into stall and lock.
• Step 2 - Lay down toilet cover, or use toilet paper to fashion one, OR hover and get a quad workout while peeing. (Note, when men go #2, I really wonder how many actually put down the seat protector...)
• Step 3 - Unbutton/unfasten pants.
• Step 4 - Pull pants down.
• Step 5 - SIT down.
• Step 6 - If NOT on period skip steps A-F below.

• o A - Curse loudly in your head, then be grateful you have a tampon in your purse. Add in embarrassing time consuming tampon hunting steps if not.
• o B - Try to take care of any mess. My favorite part.
• o C - If have some kind of apparatus on or in, take off or out.
• o D - Oh shit! The little trash can doesn't have a liner. Add in steps to wrap up said object in a million layers of toilet paper to take out with you.
• o E - Dispose of object or flush it.
• o F - Unwrap & replace fresh object.

• Step 7 - Pee.
• Step 8 - Wipe.
• Step 9 - Pull your pants up.
• Step 10 - Zip/latch/fasten pants.
• Step 11 - Gather your nasty garbage and purse and exit stall.
• Step 12 - Wash hands.

Ok. SO - you can already tell a woman spends more time in a bathroom than a man does. I did some math to substantiate my claims because FACTS are facts and then no one can argue with me. I may even take a stop-watch into the bathroom next time to make sure my facts are accurate.

Three weeks out of every month we'll say the average woman uses a public restroom 10 times with normal bathroom delays. (This is a SMALL number - I use one probably 20-30 times.) Then one week out of every month, she will still go use a public restroom 10 times, but this week is special. Or rather hell week. The week a woman's antagonistic Aunt Flo comes and beats her in the uterus until she bloats, feels sick, and develops a splitting headache.

With those estimated stats, here is the math:
*Note: 40 weeks/year with 10 visits a week = non-menstrual
            12 weeks with 10 visits a week = hell week

Average Woman:

Normal public bathroom visits/year = 400. Added time in bathroom for toilet cover and sitting is 30 seconds. 400 visits x 30 seconds = 200 minutes/year + 120 min for "Extended Period Visits" (add 1 minute) = 320 minutes/year.

We will say that women menstruate for about 40 years of their life regularly. That equals about 212 hours or 8.9 DAYS of a woman’s life spent on extra time in the bathroom.

Jen Woman (based on 25 visits per week):

Normal public bathroom visits/year = 1,000. Added time in bathroom for toilet cover and sitting is 30 seconds. 1,000 visits x 30 seconds = 500 minutes/year + 300 min for "Extended Period Visits" (add 1 minute) = 800 minutes/year.

800 min x 40 years of menstruating = 22.2 days extra spent in my LIFETIME putting paper down on a toilet and sitting. These numbers don't even include the time I spend sitting/wiping at home. This is JUST public uses! Do you know what I could do with an extra 22.2 days in my life? Solve world hunger. Fix illiteracy in the states. Build a house. Write a novel. Possibilities are endless.

But the issue is not really the time. It is the damn fact that men have no appreciation WHATSOEVER for the mere fact that they NEVER have to go through this. They are oblivious to the things we endure on a daily or weekly basis that they don't ever contemplate or bat an eye at. Because peeing sitting down is just ONE thing.

Try being the woman after sex without a condom. You have no idea. I can't work out for the next few hours AND for up to a DAY the aftermath is there. Do you men even know what I mean by AFTERMATH!

Add in the makeup, hair, the bras, the PANTY HOSE & PREGNANCY and I swear we spend years of our lives on things most men take for granted. So men, next time your wife/sister/mother/girlfriend is on edge and being slightly bitchy, come to terms with the fact that she deserves to be a bitch, and then hug her, kiss her, give her a foot rub, and tell her how you appreciate her vagina and all that comes with it.

Things That Happen That Shouldn't and Defy All Universal Laws

I was just using a mechanical pencil and a memory smacked me in the face like an angry mother. TWICE in elementary and middle school, TWICE something unexplainable and weird happened to me. I pumped out too much lead so when I placed pressure on the pencil to write, the lead broke. I immediately felt something rocket up my nose that made my eyes water.

SERIOUSLY?

This 6 mm thick, 1/8" long piece of lead flew STRAIGHT UP MY NOSE?! What are the freakin odds of that? It's not like I even have large cavernous nostrils or anything! Out of the 9 BILLION other places it could have gone, that's where it went? And talk about embarrassing! All of a sudden you're making bulldog grunting noises in the back of the classroom, then sprint up to the front with your eyes all misty to grab a tissue, then furiously blow your nose and poke around in the snot to make sure it came out, all whilst the judging hot stares of your classmates sizzle the back of your neck. TRAUMITIZING.

And this happened to me TWICE. I swear that is like the same odds as being hit by lightening twice. It makes no sense so my conclusion is; God needed a good laugh.

Smells

Not that I can compare this to much, because I've never had someone else's olfactory skills, but I have a pretty kick ass sense of smell.

And let me just declare something.

Some smells that go into your body,
should
Never.
Come.
Back.
Out.

So this is where things get gross, maybe? Honestly I don't really know because my sensitivity meter to what other people think is inappropriate has been broken. Forever. Like how Micah constantly tells me that bringing up my colonoscopy procedure I had done in college or detailed descriptions of my bladder issues in public is not appropriate. Not that he doesn't mind listening, but because I have no control over the volume of my voice I'm basically forcing people to hear me, always unintentionally of course, and that apparently isn't very nice.

So. Here goes.

I love garlic and onions. Love to cook with them. Almost anything would be better with some sauteed onions and garlic added. But the aroma it creates when cutting and cooking is pungent, at best. Micah cries like a little girl that got pushed over at the playground every time a knife comes close to an onion. It's unreal. My body though, must love the way it smells because it lingers for DAYS. When I hop in the shower the smell that I THOUGHT, stupid me, was gone comes oozing back out and suddenly it smells like I'm bathing in a pot of soup.

Few days later, when the soup shower smell calms down, I smell it when I pee. Honestly?! How on earth could something linger for so long?! It makes me paranoid that my natural smell is like a spicy overpowered Indian dish and no one will ever sit close to me for anything nor for any reason.

So there's onions and garlic, asparagus makes your pee just smell downright WEIRD, broccoli, no matter how fresh when consumed, always comes back smelling like rotten garbage and poo. How come GOOD smells can't re-surface? The only thing I know of, is sometimes some cereals make my pee smell like honey and sweetness. I also know others that have experienced this phenomenon. But usually the good smells never come back. Even burping - when you burp something "good" back up, it's always mixed with something nasty from earlier. Like ew - that tasted like ice cream, and baked beans. Separately those two things are amazing. However together they make for an ugly couple. So next time you burp or pee and something's just not right, you'll think of me.

I'm trying to make you all think of me in the most awkward and weird situations ever. Awkwardness makes my day.

Skeletons in the Closet

The title of this blog sounds MUCH more scandalous than it really is going to be. Too bad so sad. However, you do learn a lot about yourself when you clean out your closet.

Last night, beginning around midnight, I started going through my closet. I had already started a donation bag weeks earlier and decided to do a more thorough search to see if there was anything else I'd like to give up. I do this about once a year and my rule is, not matter how much I like that shirt at the back of my closet that I totally forgot about, if I haven't worn it in a year, it's a goner.

Throughout this process I came to the realization that clothes are funny things to me.

First of all, I love them far too much, yet I always seem more than ready to get new ones. Going through my closet I realized I could probably re-evaluate and create an entirely new line up of outfits out of clothes I already own. So why I feel such a great need to get new outfits is beyond me. Maybe it's because shopping means CHANGE. It means throwing out the old and bringing in the new. It means my tastes have changed and I want to try a new look. I've grown up, I want to be more bold, I want to re-invent myself.

But when going through old clothes, you gain a very clear understanding that clothes carry baggage. I have never come in contact with something in my life that is no inanimate and yet SO emotion driving. That shirt I wore when I met my husband = fond memories, love, happiness; that skirt my mother bought me for graduation and I have grown out of the style and never worn since = guilt; the top that I wore when I danced on that table at that dance = pride/embarrassment? (it SHOULD embarrass me at least); that pair of cut offs I keep around for painting a house (which who on EARTH knows when THAT will even happen) = my dreams; that pair of jeans I looked super sexy in in that ONE picture from college = the spunk of my single days. All of these items are so hard to get rid of because they are representations of my journey in life.

I hate that they do.

I need to de-clutter my life (in more ways than one) and so...sweet articles of clothing, I bid you adieu as you meet new owners and cling to new skin. May you start a new life of your own and help someone else create new memories.