Since I like to write at least 1,ooo words a day (regardless of typos of which I am sure readers of this blog are either sick of or have become accusotomed to) I'll write just a little more for today. Did you know that if you type "today" too fast you come up with the word "toady" as in "I'm feeling toady today." The definition of feeling "toady" is up to a debate I encourage you all to begin.

Now that that's out of my system I'll get on to the next entry topic, Menstration.

Recently, a chica friend of mine aplogized for being bitchy; she said she was coming up on her period; she said she PMS was starting to set in.

I said, "I know."

She said, "Really? Is it that obvious?"

The early stages of PMS are as obvious as the Grand Canyon. Let me deviate into an imagined scene for effect.

Two aspiring, male settlers travel across the plains and pause at the Grand Canyon.
"Dang," Jim-Bob says.
"We best go 'round," Jo-Bob says.

Regardless of the scientific advances from the discovery of the Grand Canyon to this very moment of human history, men have the same reaction to PMS "Dang. We best go 'round." That's because we like the fact that our heads are attached to the rest of our bodies and recognize the fact that a woman, while suffering PMS, automatically gains the Kung-Fu-Whoop-Ass-Get-Out-Of-My-Way-Or-Die skills of Bruce Lee. Woman becomes Bruce Lee on crack. Woman becomes the flesh version of Num-Chucks. Woman becomes the lone tank that won the war against millions. Woman becomes the affirmation that we men got singled out by physiology by one chromosone, the one chromosone that said, "Eh, you ain't strong enough to take this so by nature we'll give you a cock."

It fascinates me that the difference between cock and vagina is one chromosone. It's as if men were the last ones to be picked by the female kick-ball squad, but when the women were finished picking their team they decided, why don't those ones just start their own team. So we did, and that's why there are cocks in the world. It's probably a very good thing that I haven't had to give a birds and bees talk.

Let's get back to vaginal bleeding.

I have two very distinct memories when it comes to periods. Each comes from a different stage in my life.

I'll start with my earliest memory. This is not a childhood favorite, yet an unfortunate necessity required to become a person compassionately understands that men have it really easy by simple being men.

I remember my sister getting her period when I was a young boy. I didn't know that blood came from anywhere except a wound, so when I saw my sister in the bathroom after walking in unannounced, I freaked. In my mind, blood was everywhere. I thought she'd been stabbed. Naturally, I started freaking out. This caused her to freak out because the last thing any woman of any age wants is the public announcement that she is bleeding. My sister grabbed me by the ear. She twisted it. She was bleeding. I was crying because my ear hurt like hell. She was bleeding. She told me to shut up. I shut up. She was bleeding. She told me to stay shut up. She shoved me out of the bathroom and I stayed shut up about all that for about eighteen years. And this is my first public say-so of that event. I say it now out of respect to how horrifying it must have been for her to be a young woman figuring out how to manage this new gushing only to have this snot-nosed-little-fuck-nose (me) come waltzing in thinking he'd stumbled upon a crime scene. My sister and I have talked about that moment as adults. We laugh about it now, though I touch my ear to make sure it's not in my sister's hand from time to time.

The second memory is one I have a hard time admitting the fact of because admitting it means that I have to discount a man I once considered a hero. This requires some back-story.

I've been in Boy Scouts ever since I reached the age I could join. Some people give me shit for being involved in the organization at my age. There are a lot of old jokes about pedofiles and such. That doesn't bother me because I know the only reason why I'm still involved is because some guys helped me understand that being a man didn't require being manly but did require being true to ones conviction and that conviction must always be fair to the self and everyone else. For the first part of my scouting experience I saw how men taught boys to be compassionate men. For the latter part of my scouting experience and the experience I still experience to thisn day, I saw and see men who actly dispasionately toward women.

When I was SPL (senior patrol leader) of T-30, T-30 operated like clockwork. To this day I am considered the best SPL of T-30 in the troop's existence of almost one hundred years. When I was SPL a change in Scouts happened. Women were becoming more and more prominent. T-30 to this day is probably the last of the old dogs holding out letting any woman hold a "real" seat of power.

I'll never forget the day a man who I consider to be a hero became a person whose motives and humanity I could not understand. We were in camp. I was SPL. I was a good SPL. I was told so by my buddies. I was told so by men I admired. This made me understand that I could have the strength to admire myself.

I had a meeting to go to that day.

It was a council meeting.

I now know that the meeting was designed by the men of the council to keep women out of scouts. To this day I do think having women in scouts in unnecessary, but it is also a catch 22 because some troop need somebody is a woman, which has never bothered me.

Before I headed out to the meeting, I made my way to a circle of green, canvas tents. These guys wanted to talk to me before I spoke for T-30. The man I fully respected then said, "We know you'll do the right thing."

He meant, Speak out against women in scouts. I did agree with him. He didn't need to say anymore. However, scared people always talk too much.

The man I then respected folded his arms and said, "I've never trusted anyone who can bleed for seven days and live."

This made no sense to me then. It makes no sense now.

I remember say, "Okay," because I couldn't think of anything else to say.

He said, "You'll represent T-30 just fine, I know."

I was the only SPL who didn't go to that meeting. Letters after camp kept telling me that. I threw each letter into the trash just like I kept throwing rocks into Truman Lake the day Iwalked to shore instead of going to that meeting. I was the well decorated scout sitting beside the lake who had somewhere to be. I was the well decorated scout who felt he should not be so decorated. I ripped a service medal few receive from my chest and flung it into the water. I bet it is still there, covered in moss.