no boys allowed in the room!!!!

not even hoosteen

http://children.bethelyouthonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/girls-only.jpg

YEAH! I'm in so what do we do in this here room then?

talk about makeup and boys and lisa frank stuff

User BIG HOOS aka the steendriver has been successfully banned from the thread

is this where we talk about shoes and dryer sheets

in a word: y

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

I am down with talking about all those things.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_0G0KeGZNnU0/SOkLif0annI/AAAAAAAAAJE/P4llZRVs8yQ/s320/8baeded0.gif

and swiffers

i hate the swiffer btw

http://i132.photobucket.com/albums/q37/abileen/LisaFrankPenguin.jpg

You hate the Swiffer? I was thinking of gettin' one tbh.

i dunno maybe it will improve your life but my mom got me one and it had a neutral effect afaic

i wish clarissa from clarissa explains it all posted here

http://i3.ebayimg.com/05/i/001/21/3c/6ea4_1.JPG

http://i2.ebayimg.com/06/i/001/3c/79/400c_1.JPG

lol

i'm glad oprah doesn't post here except i would like to suggest ban her

MJH was a bitch to me (as covered on another recent thread) so I don't have that much <3 for Clarissa :-(

JTT <3333333333333333

http://www.cmongethappy.com/ccorner/tigerbeat1.jpgp

:-(

http://www.cmongethappy.com/ccorner/tigerbeat1.jpg

we can do this here

http://handson.provocateuse.com/images/photos/james_franco_01.jpg

http://www.collider.com/uploads/imageGallery/James_Franco/james_franco_image.jpg

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/121/277978882_7d9d9521fe_o.jpg

I totally had this game btw:

http://collegecandy.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/07/girl_talk_box_cover.jpg

also we can make those paper fortune tellers and tell each others fortunes, in fact i am gonna make one right now

who are:

lisa frank
mjh
clarissa

haha what was the other game that was kinda like girl talk but it had men u could date?

x-post OK yeah, am definitely up for doing that.

GOD DAMN:

http://www.styletraxx.com/JamesFranco.jpg

i recall having this but i don't believe my mom would let me have it so i'm confused
http://www.boardgamesrus.com/images/Mall%20Madness%20G61.gif

xpost justine:

lisa frank designed crazy school supply items like some of the dolphin-festooned things you see on this thread, she was v popular with middle school aged girls in the early-mid 90s

melissa joan hart is mjh, she played the title role in "clarissa explains it all" which was a popular nickelodeon television show for the same age of girls at roughly the same time

i hate to be gabbneb, but i actually did briefly date a guy who kinda looked like james franco, esp as he is in this picture:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/1940000/images/_1944248_mate_pa.jpg

anyways he was mad dumb

http://img2.timeinc.net/ew/dynamic/imgs/081027/Freaks-And-Geeks/James-Franco-Express_l.jpg

love u boo

awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww

right??????

man i so rarely like a pinup type of dude it is kinda cool when i do cause then you can like commiserate about it with other girls

LOL yeah he's defintely just well . . . dreamy.

dryer sheets?

yes james franco is a universal.

he's 2 years older than me?!

dryer sheets and other products for the home lol

yeah what's the with dryer sheets? I'm allergic to most fabric softeners so I have to use hippy dippy all natural stuff that doesn't work all that great but is at least something.

how old r u

i hate dryer sheets, they are pointless

i don't like anything that makes things smell like anything!

Mr. Franco and I are 4 mo. and 10 days apart in age and I believe he's currently attending my alma matter.

http://www.mblcosmeticsandmore.com/files/2343446/uploaded/Loves%20Baby%20Soft.jpg

?

damn erica lol

http://lee.org/journal/journal%20030104-043004/jean-nate.jpg

en vaporisateur

hahahaha touche

yall check out this creepy ad btw:

http://rgh.cc/albums/userpics/10001/%5Bcreepy%5Dloves-baby-soft-ad-c1976.jpg

(wait - I dind't actually know that . . . I looked it up just now. Just wanted to make sure you didn't think I was some franco-obsessed crazy person)

ew rapey

xp

ok yeah, that is exceptionally creepy

(for anyone thinking "that's rich coming from poster 'la lechera'" i advise you to get your mind out of the gutter and onto the grocery shelf)

Who would think that??? A pox on them. Fie. You'll always be the Milkmaid of Human Kindness to me.

lol thank you.
i always anticipate attack, it's part of my malady :(

i can also admit that i have gotten heated when someone referred to me as Lech or La Lech. i don't remember if i said "please don't call me that" but it felt bad.

Nobody would think that in a million years. I'm sure I've used Lech or La Lech before but only because it's shorter/easier and didn't occur to me that it was bad.

like i said, i anticipate being attacked for literally existing -- i am working on it but it's DEEP IN THERE

Who would think that??? A pox on them. Fie. You'll always be the Milkmaid of Human Kindness to me.

I've definitely misunderstood references or allusions before and had my mind jump to a worse/more vulgar association because that's what I'd come to expect from men (or at least fear).

Thanks, kate, for the hidden content. I read it and I've also been through it--not exactly but along some of the same lines. I have a lot of thoughts but not sure I want them on the internet. Suffice to say it is common, extremely common and totally accepted and excused ime.

I'm also thinking about a woman creator on TT who made the point that out of a very large number of pleasant things people can do together, only one particular version of that leads to pregnancy, and that happens to also be the one most normalized that "has" to be available/necessary in a relationship. And, she continued, if you don't think that's true, imagine whether you would still have a relationship if you told someone you would never do that thing again (out of all the things). I...can see some complexities with that example, I don't take it completely at face value, but I also think it's a good thing to think about.

Yeah.

I guess, for me, that is what tends to define monogamy or a romantic relationship as opposed to a platonic one. There are complications when there are disabilities and/or illness involved, so I know it isn’t that simple. But … I see it as up there with cohabitation in terms of things that are generally dealbreakers. There are definitely couples who are content with not living together, just like there are couples who are content with not having sex, but … if there isn’t consensus on the issue, it seems to make more sense to redefine the relationship.

i get off the bus and the guy at the corner says to me "Excuse me, could you give me five, maybe ten dollars? I need it for bullets." this is at, like, 7:30 at night BTW. the men i see on the street are so _angry_ and _violent_ and they've only gotten moreso over the past five years. idk, i don't have a lot of experience - am i misreading? has there always been this level of overt hatred and contempt towards women?

too bad you didn't have any bullets to give him.

i'm sorry that happened to you, kate. idk why these guys can't just let women exist without being weird assholes about it. (referring to all of recorded history here)

I have a question!! Have I not understood ANYTHING?

Someone said that Pap smears, the actual sample gathering, feels like a “tickle” and the other person (a woman) insisted that it HURTS. It’s never hurt me?? Does it hurt?

Nothing that has ever happened to me in an exam has ever hurt (except my IUD stuff). Is that not the norm?

I've never experienced pain from a Pap smear myself. IUD insertion was a 9 out of 10 though.

People are wired very uniquely though - I'm sure it could be agonizing for some folks.

Well that's why I'm asking.

Even the IUD stuff, I wouldn't say that it hurt me like a huge amount compared to injuries I've gotten on the outside of my body, it's just that it feels so wrong coming from the inside. It reminds me of something I read, that if your internal organs are for some reason exposed to open air that isn't body temp, they signal the relatively cold temperature as pain. (It does seem like if your insides are being exposed to the open air there's probably some actual pain happening, presumably they meant other than whatever brought this situation about.)

I have a question!! Have I not understood ANYTHING?

Someone said that Pap smears, the actual sample gathering, feels like a “tickle” and the other person (a woman) insisted that it HURTS. It’s never hurt me?? Does it hurt?

It feels like my deepest most personal insides are being scraped w a spoolie— not pain exactly but massive discomfort and emotional trouble absolutely.

I’d still rather get 50 Pap tests to one root canal.

It’s the pain of something v sensitive being touched with something abrasive under vulnerable (and frankly uncomfortable) conditions, like getting poked in the eye only naked from waist down and it’s cervix not eye.

Every one I’ve had has been uncomfortable, mostly due to the weight of the speculum. When I was 20 a doctor offered me the choice of a plastic disposal speculum (upcharge of $25) and it was so much less uncomfortable. Ive never been offered that option again.

Yeah let’s not forget the speculum 🤮

my cervix is tilted/positioned weirdly and they always have to do some unpleasant maneuvering of the speculum with any pelvic exam. a couple of times i would have described it as actually painful. never had pain from the pap itself

My expired, overdue to be removed IUD appears to be stuck or embedded to some degree and I have to have it yanked out with little to no pain management unless I want to go actually go into the hospital and pay for anesthesia. Which I do not. But neither do I want the former. So I'm doing nothing, which will probably end great, no possible drawbacks there.

Ugh. I was just about to ask if having an IUD removed hurts less than having one inserted. I've got to get a Mirena swapped out later this year, for endometrial precancer management. Getting it inserted was bad - two separate visits, shots of lidocaine in my cervix, a couple weeks of vaginal estrogen that made me feel blergh. I'd rather not get uterine cancer but I'm really not looking forward to this.

I could never even consider getting an IUD bc of how invasive the insertion/removal seems (to me). I’d only go through it if my life was at risk but not voluntarily. I realized how intense my aversion was when I listened to a podcast about a woman who had a bad experience w a birthing center and had to be rushed to ER bc her pregnancy and life were at risk. I could go on and on about the aversion but trust it is strong.

(actually i did not realize it when i listened to the podcast -- i was reminded. it is not something i have thought about in years. fortunately!!)

My experience of having 2 IUD insertions, one removal (mirena):
First insertion was so painful I screamed and almost passed out but it did only last a few seconds. Removal was painless and new insertion was also painless. Idk what the difference was except that the nurse who did the first one was pretty cold and annoyed with me, and dr who did the second was extremely kind, let me know every step she was performing, and asked permission to touch me.

Wow, Justine! Yikes. My insertions were both uncomfortable, I would say, verging on painful in an achey way that made me happy to go home and go to bed. Also I had, as I've said before, misoprostol to help. The one removal was quick and like--ow!--but then over and done with. The current one has been in for a long time, is the problem here.

You know how when you cut yourself, you want to put pressure on the wound and hold it, to fire the neurons and block the pain? Getting hurt on the inside feels like that to me but I can't "sana sana colita de rana" and tap on it as a distraction.

Sorry to everyone who has more intense involvement with these experiences. :(

oh thank god, an excuse to tell my colposcopy story

i'd had a pap smear, i'd hated it, felt like a toilet brush up my guts, very not cool and the interior scraping sensation haunted me for weeks. and then in the mail: congratulations! your results were abnormal so you've won a trip back to the exam table, this time with vinegar and a camera, maybe even a biopsy if you're lucky. awesome. i bought cute new socks for the occasion.

my cute socks and i show up the day of. would i be okay with a nursing student being present? yeah whatever, get everyone in here, let's party. so like 4 ladies are peering up my pried-open spotlit gooch/at the monitor, painting my cervix with acid, and the lights in the room go half off? and a fire drill-esque beepy siren? all the ladies freeze. there's probably some procedure for what to do when the alarm goes off while a patient has a speculum + camera + acid paintbrush all wedged up in them, but it seems to have slipped everyone's mind. they eventually send out the student to see what's happening while they hurriedly snip off a lil chunk of cervix for testing {JESUS FUCKING FUCK UGH OW FUCK btw} and when the student comes back she looks scared and whispers to the others, they all confer nervously by the door too quietly for me to hear -- i am still, of course, up on the exam table for display like a whole raw chicken, having fantasies of crazed gunmen -- and the other ladies scarper, leaving the main nurse practitioner to yank the various apparatuses out of me with a panicked smile on her face, prattling that some mild discomfort for a few days is normal, here's a maxi pad for the bleeding, they should have the test results in about a week, here are my clothes, have a great day, bye, and she's out and i'm alone in this darkened exam room with the alarm still going, my eyes darting around for anything i could use to deflect bullets maybe? anything i might use as a weapon? painfully hopping into my panties and pants while keeping an ear out for gunshots, screaming, police radio in the hallway, any indication of whether/how i'm about to die, but i don't hear anything much and eventually peek out into the hall where staff are huddled whispering in doorways but no one seems to be in fear for their life. the lights are still dimmed and the alarm still bleating but fuck it i need to get home and dissociate for a few years. i'm too awkward to ask any of the strangers around what's happening or what i should do so i just leave the way i came.

they were raising the security gate at the entrance of the clinic as i left, and i never found out what happened.

...and then you woke up, hopefully?
jfc that sounds... not ideal. Hope you have recovered!

i kind of suspect that i've never really recovered from anything ever, but at least the test results came back fine! thank you for your concern, kinder 💚

I had a colposcopy once too — it was awful. What I remember most is being fresh out of college and the doctor asking what my plans were post-graduation. I had no plans and will always remember that as a reason not to ask people what their plans are. I was mortified this man was all up in my business and managing to make me feel even MORE uncomfortable than I obviously already was.

I had a colposcopy once too — it was awful. What I remember most is being fresh out of college and the doctor asking what my plans were post-graduation. I had no plans and will always remember that as a reason not to ask people what their plans are. I was mortified this man was all up in my business and managing to make me feel even MORE uncomfortable than I obviously already was.

Also cat recovery and healing can happen — you have to deliberately work at it but things can get better. I say that as someone much like yourself who had years on years of accumulated unprocessed trauma.

sorry you also had to get colposcoped, LL, and that your doctor found a way to make it even less comfortable! i don't think i could ever have a male gyno poking at me, i'd probably rather take my chances with the cancer. my body just rejects them absolutely, like oh there's a strange dude here? guess i'm about to die. the only times i've had elevated blood pressure readings was when guys took them.

i kind of meant recovery as separate from healing, in the sense of getting back to an idealized "normal" that probably never existed anyway and which i need to accept can never happen, as opposed to healing, which for me would involve accepting my changed circumstances and self, but really this is just me playing around with words in an unserious way

i don't think i can recover as i understand the term, but it's possible i can heal, you know? with work, as you say.

You’re right about that — I’m resilient af and can accept growth and healing but there is no recovery when I’ve been changed from something/s that happened to me. That’s critical to understanding how life isn’t just one dreadful indignity/colposcopy after another. There’s definitely no reset button.

I went with my bff for her colposcopy. They let me be in the room to hold her hand and it was AWFUL. My poor buddy was in shock afterwards. I can’t remember the details since this was 20+ years ago, but she had to go back for another procedure of some kind, maybe a second colposcopy? and she asked if she could be put under for it. They said yes but didn’t inform her of the no eating/drinking thing. We get to the hospital and they’re like ohh you’ll have to be awake since you didn’t fast oh well 🤷‍♀️ which I think is bullshit and they never intended to put her under GA. They tried to coerce her but I grabbed her said guess we’ll just have to reschedule and got her out of there. This is why my husband comes to every dr appointment with me (and I go to his) unless it’s impossible. It sucks but I only feel safe with healthcare professionals if I have an advocate with me.

(apologies)

Doctors urged to treat pain for IUD insertion and other procedures

Countless patients have suffered through in-office gynecological procedures like IUD insertions or cervical biopsies, with nothing more than ibuprofen and white knuckles.

Pain is complex and individual. One patient might feel little to no discomfort and for another it can be excruciating. But some clinicians don't offer pain management because they believe it's unnecessary.

In its new recommendations for cervical and uterine procedures, released last week, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists says there is "an urgent need" for this to change.

fucking finally

my cervical biopsy was excruciating! & the stupid nurses assistant was saying infantilizing shit like “just breathe in and then out like you’re blowing out a birthday candle” and i’m glaring with tears streaming down my face like OMG LADY IF YOU DONT SHUT THE FUCK UP RIGHT THE FUCK NOW

reminds me how they used to do surgery on babies without anesthesia because they thought babies couldn't feel pain

if only there was some way to figure out what those crazy cervix-havers are feeling! but i guess we'll never know

i'm sorry for what you went thru, VG!

Had to have another ultrasound as part of removing my now-defunct IUD, which was a little harder to get out than expected...definitely not fun but a decent excuse to take half a day off work and eat cherries on the couch while the cramps wore off.

Anyway I learned that apparently I have two fibroids, one of which is bigger than my actual uterus?!? They don't hurt (with one exception, more on that in a sec) so the doc says leave them because the surgery is, in her words, "bloody." So I guess I have fibroids now? I mean I've probably had them for years and maybe because I was already peri/post-menopausal the impact was minimal? The exception is that this is probably why some...things got more and more painful over time and I never stopped to assess "this wasn't like this before." I've mentioned to my NP a few times, hey, activities aren't that fun, feels like there's too much furniture in the living room if you know what I mean, and she didn't follow up on that. :( So I guess unless I want to have a bloody and probably expensive surgery, I will not be accessing some parts of human relationshipping which is not making me feel BETTER about my future.

Anyway I learned that apparently I have two fibroids, one of which is bigger than my actual uterus?!? They don't hurt (with one exception, more on that in a sec) so the doc says leave them because the surgery is, in her words, "bloody." So I guess I have fibroids now? I mean I've probably had them for years and maybe because I was already peri/post-menopausal the impact was minimal? The exception is that this is probably why some...things got more and more painful over time and I never stopped to assess "this wasn't like this before." I've mentioned to my NP a few times, hey, activities aren't that fun, feels like there's too much furniture in the living room if you know what I mean, and she didn't follow up on that. :( So I guess unless I want to have a bloody and probably expensive surgery, I will not be accessing some parts of human relationshipping which is not making me feel BETTER about my future.

― Ima Gardener (in orbit)

shit, that's awful :(

i have a lot of cis female friends who deal with similar limitations on certain parts of human relationshipping and i fucking _hate_ how much stigma there is around women who have those limitations. i mean the women i know with those problems are often lesbians, and still feel like "what woman would want me if i can't do _that_". even though to a lot of us lesbians that kind of thing isn't something that's important to me or even something that i particularly want!

i'm happy to be a woman and i'm happy to be 50 and i'm happy guys aren't creeps to me but it's hard seeing so many women my age, particularly cis women, being told in so many words that having normal health issues for a woman their age makes them "broken" somehow :(

Oh no the broken part I blame Christian purity culture for. I've had that for like 40 years.

yeah fair! i'm more of a... like they say in the meme, "why not both" haha

interesting to see you talking about this, idk if you're reading "what are you doing with your time and gifts" thread, a guy just posted something there that... it's not the same thing, there are gender differences, i just kinda went "huh interesting" when i read it

Por que no los dos?!

ah i've got two fibroids too, io. fortunate that the big one is located outside the uterine wall which meant that, albeit high-risk, I was still able to get pregnant and give birth this year (yay!). but it's also pushing up on my bladder which means that I have to pee pretty much every two hours and have an increased risk of kidney problems (boo!). I've had it a long time now, first detected during a routine check-up about six years ago.

the other one is much smaller and also outside the uterine wall and developed during the pregnancy. for both, my obgyn just recommended regular monitoring instead of surgery as well. re 'bloody': I had a caesarean and asked if it was possible to remove the fibroids at the same time and got the same response... it wasn't possible then due to high risk of bleeding out. :/

The thing with fibroids is that they do grow and shrink over time - mine grew massive during my pregnancy but shrunk to about 5cm a few months after delivery.

So there's a good chance that yours may too? but of course it's hard to say because it's all dependent on hormones, those pesky pesky hormones, and of course despite how common fibroids are, there's very little research on what causes them or how to treat them, and of course there are a lot of snake oil merchants out there claiming to be able to shrink them "naturally" through diet or supplements (and it's all bullshit). of course of course of course

I am starting to have hot flashes. At least that’s what I think they are… like “wow I feel like I have a really bad sunburn on my face!” … then “it’s 65 degrees and I wasn’t out in the sun so …”

My female reproductive apparatus has felt like a tremendous curse ever since I realized how miserable it would make me for the rest of my life. It has remained authentic to its mission for sure.

Cosigning that so hard