Adventures in Contraceptives and The Science of Women

My Facebook status has changed and along with great sex comes great responsibility. Recently it was decided that it would be mutually agreeable to both of us if we switched to a more suitable method of contraceptive. After some thought and discussion it was decided that me taking a birth control pill would be appropriate so I made a date with my ObGyn. Dr W.

After the usual dinner and a movie with his speculum Dr. W. supported my decision to go on the pill and offered some encouraging words that included the flattering line "everything is architecturally perfect" or wait....was that something Patricia Neal said to Gary Cooper in "The Fountainhead"?
That clip is perfect because that is exactly how I was behaving after being on a steady dose of progesterone for only one week. I would have done that too, but I don't have a horse to ride and more importantly if I showed up to John's workplace and whipped him across the face with a riding crop I would be in some serious trouble.

It became very apparent, very quickly that this birth control pill was turning into a mirth control pill. I produced more irrational tears and menstrual blood in that three week period than I did my last three years of High School. It was awful and I was loosing my mind. My Doctor chose to take his vacation during this time so I decided to white knuckle it through those last two weeks thinking that the side effects would dissipate, but they didn't. Forgetfulness is a side effect so I don't remember all the insane ranting I must have subjected John to. But I'm sure it was spectacular in delivery and informative in it's content.
I started taking a new one this week and it's a little better. My head is clear now but the morning sickness is hideous. The irony of it all. To avoid pregnancy I have to be subjected to it's more unpleasant symptoms. Shouldn't I be glowing?

The last time I took the pill "Out Of Africa" won Best Picture at the Oscars. Some serious time had passed since then and I was informed that "today's pill" had minimal side effects and I had no reason to think otherwise. Hey, the pill just celebrated it's 50th anniversary this past May. Here's a quick history of oral contraceptives

The first Gynecologist was a Greek called Soranus. (real name) His suggestions for oral contraceptives were a series of bat shit crazy concoctions containing oils, fruits, grains, and other vegetable matter. He also suggested drinking the water that the blacksmiths used to cool hot metals. Other oral contraceptives included urine and animal parts along with mercury, arsenic, or strychnine. (Please consult your village wizard before trying any of these yourself.)

There is a Nicholas Ray movie called "Bigger than Life". In it James Mason starts taking a new wonder drug called Cortisone. In the movie he becomes so dependent on the drug that It makes him slowly lose his mind until by the end he's chasing his young son around the house wielding a bible and a pair of scissors. "A handful of hope that became a fistful of hell"
Again, I could totally have seen myself doing this too..... wait, maybe I did. No, John would have mentioned that and besides I don't have a bible in my home.

A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Crime Scene

This is all true by the way. In this town you can walk out your door and into a Robert Altman movie.
I had just arrived at a party on Saturday night and after making a beeline for the food and settling down to eat, my phone rang. It was 10.30pm and the ID read Blocked so I answered it figuring it was an animal emergency.
"LA Pet Tech"

"Is this Kathleen Ashe?"

"Yes"

"Ms Ashe this is Officer Guerrero with the Los Angeles Police Department, North Hollywood Division......."

I didn't take in much after that because my mind wandered to..... "How did the cops get my phone number?" then that morphed into "Oh shit, something has happened to John." (he's a fellow crime fighter with the same employer.) I ran into quieter room and hurriedly interrupted.
"Has something happened to John?"

"Who's John?"

"He's my...."
I paused because I didn't really know what John was to me in that moment. I got back on track.
"I'm sorry, I interrupted you, please continue"

He went on to explain that he and his partner were at the residence of a client of mine (I was taking care of her home and dogs while she was gone for a week.) Dispatch had received a call from the neighbors expressing concern for the owner's welfare because they hadn't seen her for 2 days. He went on to explain that when they arrived they heard the dogs barking and since no one answered and due to the nature of the call they were obliged to force their way inside. They did this by kicking in the back door by the kitchen to gain entry.
I told them I was 10 minutes away and that I was coming over. They said they'd wait for me.
I ran to my car all the while thinking......should I call John?
As you may remember we had talked last weekend over the phone for the first time in 5 weeks so I wasn't anxious about hearing his voice, but I wasn't sure if I wanted to ask him for help. That struck me as something a girlfriend would do and since he had revoked my girlfriend privileges albeit reluctantly, there was still breakup etiquette to be adhered to. After brief council with the top half of my body I said to myself "fuck it". I started the car and just like Michael Knight, barked an order at the direction of my dashboard. "Call Scorpion" (John was not born in between the dates of October 24th and November 22nd but he had earned this pseudonym none the less)
It should have been a 5 minute drive to the house. The party was in Laurel Canyon and the house in question was in Studio City.
Wearing my bluetooth, whilst I drove, I listened to John but his voice was just becoming the soundtrack to a Sam Peckinpahish montage of worst case scenarios playing on a loop inside my wandering mind..... The dogs, oh please let them be not shot and safe inside..... I can't believe I didn't ask about the dogs..... Straw Dogs......I haven't seen that movie for ages, I should get that on Netflix........that Netflix app on my iphone is lame....I should get Tootsie too I love that movie...I think it's one of the best chick flicks ever and I don't even like chick flicks.......it's more of a comedy really I suppose.......definitley one of the best comedies to come out of America ever......that and Spinal Tap.....fuck I love that movie.
I quickly snapped out of this cerebral diarrhea when I noticed a police officer gesturing in front of me and waving me into a DUI checkpoint that was setup on Ventura Blvd. I hadn't seen it looming up on the horizon because everyone was being waved through. I told John I had to go and promised to call him back when I got the "pertinent information about the incident that had unfolded at the residence."
The police officer motioned with his flashlight for me to pull over and I did.
I wound down my window as he approached me. He looked at me in shock and announced enthusiastically.
"I know you!"
I started laughing
"You do?"
"Yes, don't you recognize me?"
He looked a little hurt and/or insulted so I concentrated on him as I did a memory recall in my head. I couldn't help but notice he was super cute and looked almost too young to be a cop. He also had a tattoo on the inside of his left forearm that read something about honor, respect and love in a gothic type font. Now let me just explain something here......
When a man comes up to me and says in an enthusiastic manner "don't you remember me?" It makes me think "Oh shit, did I sleep with this guy in an alcoholic blackout?"
I was never promiscuous during my drinking days but for some reason this is where my mind goes. This theory became immediately redundant because I did most of my damage 10 years ago and that would have made officer cutie pie here about 12 years old at the proposed time. I told him again I didn't recognize him.
"Didn't I pull you over last week?"
"No, You've got me confused with someone else"
He didn't seemed convinced and asked for my Drivers License. I started laughing and naturally obliged him. I was so dumbfounded by the recent events that I tuned out. I opened my purse, took it out and handed it to him. I just kept looking ahead through the windshield wondering what was going on at the house. He then asked me if I had been drinking. I looked him directly in the eyes and proudly announced NO.
He was still smiling at me as he handed it back. It was my Citibank card.
After showing him my Drivers License and performing a quicky sobriety test I asked to see his tattoo. He showed it to me and lamented how he is teased about it all the time by his co workers. I told him I liked it and asked if I could go. He said yes, I said thank you and drove on up to the house.
As I pulled up to the house there were three cops standing there with their hands on their hips.
I promptly got out of the car and marched over towards them with my arms out and my palms up saying "What on earth is going on here guys?" One of them said we'll explain everything to you inside. As I followed them through the entrance and into the kitchen where the kicked in back door was, I took a deep breath and asked if the dogs were OK.
The dogs were accounted for and safe in the bedroom. They had barked but had stayed in the bedroom at the other end of the house. It was explained to me that once they entered and saw the notes on the kitchen counter they deduced that the owner was out of town and that someone called Kathleen was taking care of things in the meantime. They saw my name and matched it to a business card on the owners desk. That was how they got my number and why they called. They had looked around the house and said the dogs had allowed it. They were kind enough to mention that they thought one of the dogs was perhaps injured as he didn't get up. I explained he was an invalid and that he was OK.
I was so relieved to hear they had been considerate of them and their "job" because I could name a few homes where the dogs would have flipped out, done their "job" and God knows what could of happened.
I called John and sent him photos of the damage to the door. He gave me specific questions to ask. One of the officers had overheard me and asked who I was talking to. I told them I was talking to my boyfriend and that he was LAPD also. This seem to make them relax and they opened up to me that they all thought the neighbors were a little too snoopy for their liking. The female officer gave me the neighbors' names and phone numbers and suggested even though it wasn't necessary it might be worth calling them to give them my number so that the police didn't have to break down anymore doors. They then MacGyvered the back door as to make it secure until I could have someone come by in the morning to fix it properly. I asked them if they needed anything else from me and they said no. They asked me that same thing and I said no also. I saw them out thanking them again for being so considerate of the dogs and told them to be safe. I locked the door and called John back, he answered.
"I called you my boyfriend"
"Yeah, I heard that part"

The olde timey talking device and the ring.

Talking on the telephone can really mess with your head. I got two calls recently from two very important people in my life, Mum and John.
My mum called because she wanted to know the current whereabouts of the eight diamond, Margaret cluster, cocktail engagement ring that she had passed on to me in an attempt at some kind of mother/daughter bonding gesture back when I got married for 15 minutes, 15 years ago to a well meaning boy from Kentucky. (I had decided I didn't want one of my own. I'll get to that in a bit.)
This curious gesture was a bit odd to me and out of character for her, after all the ring represented the satanic union that was my mother and father's marriage, but then again the little girl inside me had always wanted "the precious." I used to stare at it and as a young girl and think how pretty and grown up it was. The reality of it was more that since the fateful day my father had put it on her finger, it had proceeded like a proverbial boa constrictor to cut off all blood flow to the sensible, decision making part of her brain, and as a result was slowly choking out of her of any lust for life she'd ever had.

I used to try the ring on if I ever saw it laying around the house anywhere. I'd hold it up to the light and think how rich it made me look and how many ponies it could conceivably buy.
Later, around the age of ten or eleven, I would look at it and wonder in confusion how it was that the monster that terrorized us everyday was the same person that had at one point in the not so distant past given her the shiny fancy as a token of his apparent love for her.
My father was a mentally ill, misogynistic, pathological liar who routinely raped his wife and beat his children. I couldn't pack fast enough the weekend she told us we were leaving him.
I actually hugged her and said "Thank You." I was twelve.
I found myself thanking her again. "Thanks Mum" was all I said when she finally gave it to me.
I drowned that thing in salt water under the light of a full moon and smudged it with sage in a futile effort to exorcise the hateful memories out of it, but alas, it retained it's evil properties.
It was beautiful for sure and was eventually sold to the pawn shop adjacent to the Cecil Hotel on Main Street in Downtown Los Angeles.
I was the occupant of room 232 at that fine establishment whilst I was " residentially challenged" for a brief time back at the turn of the century. Anyway, I reminded her about the fate of the ring and to my dismay and horror said she had no recollection of me ever telling her that. I was furious and hurt!

"Really Mum...you don't remember when I was in a sanitarium for alcoholism and that when I was released I was broke and homeless living in a crack hotel........nothing?" "Remember I called you from Michael and Leora's asking you to forward me some of the money I left with you in your safekeeping when I moved to the States, just in case there was such an emergency?"
"No Kathleen, I don't know what you're talking about. I think I'd remember that."
"Yeah you'd think!.....I'm sorry Mum but I pawned the ring for $100.00 dollars because I was hungry and I was never able to buy it back because the store closed down when they gentrified the neighborhood."
"Never mind then"
..........and scene.

What is an engagement ring for anyway? What does it represent? What does it say about the hopeful future bride and the optimistic groom to be? I can monetarily afford to keep you now?
I gave you this ring so now you owe me? I spent this much because I love you this much? I mean really, I understand and respect the symbolic mutual exchange of wedding rings. But what's the purpose of an engagement ring in this day and age? I'd be more impressed if you paid off all your debt and bought me something I've always wanted. Like, say a pony.......and that brings me to my other telephone call, the one from John.

There were many things I did for him that he really liked. I always told him he could have it forever but in order for that to happen he would have to get me a pony.
The pony would be called Pukwudgie.
I hadn't heard his voice for 37 days. During our relationship never talked much on the phone because we saw each other often enough. If there ever was a need to relay information betwixt making out it was easier to text said information. Phone calls were for emergencies or pressing details that consisted of too much detail to type. I had been trying to fill the aural hole with a Nick Cave song or a Matt Berry podcast but it wasn't working. We had exchanged a few emails lamenting our current condition but I wasn't ready to talk to him about any of it really. I was just comforted enough in knowing he was missing me as I was him. But I was being a hypocrite. I was denying myself the need to hear his voice and that made me feel like I was slipping back into practicing Emotional Mediocrity. I sent him an email telling him he could call me if he so chose. He promptly took me up on my offer and we spent just shy of four hours listening and talking to each other. Mostly he listened to me and when he did speak I found his accent was as endearing as I'd remembered it to be.

I'm grateful for all of these feelings I am having. But I'm especially thankful for my friends and loved ones that encourage me to express these feelings whenever and however I want.

Sam reads my Haiku

I think therefore I am.......wasting my time.

Click here to enjoy aural pleasure

It's June. Many of you may be reading this blog as a temporary distraction from engaging in some left to the last minute ("I thought you said you were going to do it.....they're your friends. I don't even want to go") mandatory perusal of a breathtakingly overpriced Williams Sonoma Bridal Registry list.
And because you've left it to the last minute ("I work 7 days a week why can't you go online and do it? There no captcha you need to fill in to prove you have a vagina in order to make an internet purchase from a bridal OR baby registry for that matter....Jesus!" ) It's proving to be exceedingly difficult to locate something as straight forward as an affordable kitchen utensil that, I might add, for what exact purpose for existing, even the catalog writers can't even seem to justify or explain away. The most redundant condiment dispenser ever, perhaps?

Anyway while you're doing that and, I'm going to guess, begrudgingly Shop, Shop, Shopping at ROSS for something appropriate to wear. I will be wading through June's misty morning gloom contemplating what I'm going to write, sew, bake and/or do next. Just saying this makes me feel productive and with a sense of purposity*.

Here's Sam reading some more of my Haiku.

pur·posity
   [pur-puhs-itee] Show IPA noun, verb,
–noun
1.
the reason for which something exists or is done, made, used, despite all common sense.
2.
an intended or desired result; end; aim; goal within the parameters of the ridiculous incongruous or the unreasonable.
3.
naive determination; resoluteness: absurbism.
4.
the subject in hand; the point (less) at issue.
5.
inpractical result, effect, or advantage: to act with futile purpose.
–verb (used with object)
6.
to set via delusions of grandeur an aim, intention, or goal for oneself.
7.
to foolishly intend; design.
8.
to resolve (to do something): She was baffled by her heart’s circumstance and often wondered what John was doing with the half he took with him.
–verb (used without object)

Emotional Mediocrity and It's Vast Riches

When the word intimacy is bandied about you typically think Sex and Secrets. Of course I've been "intimate" with people during my life but there are very few people I share intimacy with. It's an enormous leap of faith for me and it is terrifying to say the least. Love is invariably part of the equation but what comes first? Love or Intimacy. Here are my two experiences. (Sex is not in the equation at this juncture.)
A. I think I love you so I'll tell you some embarrassing stories about myself and you'll meet my friends.
B. I'm inhabiting a higher plane of existence when we're together and I feel safe with you.
Option A is what I consider now to be a kind of "Emotional Mediocrity"
Option B will cause you to question everything you thought you knew about yourself and the world around you.

Emotional Mediocrity is the easier to execute. It's predictable. You get to retain some control over your feelings because you're emotional investment is slim. (I'll give you this much of me.) The result is a substandard relationship because ultimately you're heart will win over your head and resentments will come to pass because your deepest needs are not being met. The other way, Option B, and the recent demise thereof, is something I am walking through now for the first time.
I currently stumble around in a haze of confusion and sometimes tears, from work to my therapists office to my meetings to yoga to bed. It feels exactly like my mind and heart are debating how best to realign a compass inside me. So let's say I'm on a journey to figure out who I am now after this experience.

To quote Dorothy Parker "What fresh hell is this?" Four weeks in and I'm still discombobulated and saying it's been sad doesn't begin to scratch the surface. At this point maybe you're wondering who the other person in this equation is. So if in the future I need to mention said person we'll refer to him simply as John. To my surprise, this spectacular misery has spawned some of the more personal and funny creative projects I've ever thought up. Which brings me to why I started this blog. (Blog is such a stupid word it sounds like a euphemism for a sexual act involving shit or something.)
I'm going to include all my artisticky* adventures on here as opposed to the patchy Facebook postings my immediate friends have enjoyed thus far, so my grief will be a more cohesive and accessible Girls Own Adventure story to follow.
And much like an evil corporate retail chain, I value and welcome your opinion and feedback.

ar·tis·ticky

   /ɑrˈtɪstɪk/ Show Spelled[ahr-tis-tik-ee] Show IPA

–adjective

1.

conforming to the standards of art while provoking uncomfortable feeling of emotions once drowned out by alcohol; satisfying aesthetic and emotional requirements: artisticky productions.

2.

showing skill or excellence in execution and feeling: artisticky workmanship.

3.

exhibiting taste, discriminating judgment, viseral emotional pain or sensitivity: an artisticky arrangement of flowers; artisticky handling of a delicate diplomatic situation.

4.

exhibiting an involvement in or appreciation of art though experienced profound pain as a result of a brutal break up, esp : She had wide-ranging artisticky interests.

This is Sam. He recites my Haiku for me. I'll explain why I have him do it next time.


in·ti·ma·cy
   [in-tuh-muh-see] Show IPA
–noun, plural -cies.
1.
the state of being intimate.
2.
a close, familiar, and usually affectionate or loving personal relationship with another person or group.
3.
a close association with or detailed knowledge or deep understanding of a place, subject, period of history, etc.: an intimacy with Japan.
4.
an act or expression serving as a token of familiarity, affection, or the like: to allow the intimacy of using first names.
5.
an amorously familiar act; liberty.
6.
sexual intercourse.
7.
the quality of being comfortable, warm, or familiar: the intimacy of the room.
8.
privacy, esp. as suitable to the telling of a secret: in the intimacy of his studio.