if you aren't a girl, just scroll elsewhere....but if you are, and you're in your 40's...late 40's-ish, or hope to be, or know someone who is, or is just too amused by this person who is a wee past late 40's-ish and into early early 50's-ish, then please take heed. i know i may have mentioned this before (but of course the memory serves another master), but it certainly bears repeating. menopause. NOT for wimps. you hear an awful lot about >whew< hot FlAsHeS as they relate to menopause, but no one really really gets into the nitty gritty about the possible side-effects of your body's decision to take you to the Next Life Cycle. and i am not medically trained, nor am i any sort of expert. but it does seem that i have experienced just about every fun-house ride this particular part of life can throw at me. and i am here to warn you - READ UP. it will happen. thank God for my real estate woman...i've known her for close to 30 years and would never think of buying, selling or divorcing without her. and it was she who brought me back from the brink and held my hand, explaining that the extreme emotions i was having were part of a menopausal moment and would pass in a few hours. or days. probably. as i wept and heaved my suitcase out the door saturday after dropping Diva off at grandma's, i called her to get a quick-n-dirty market analysis on my house...how much could i hope to split in the likely eventuality of a water landing of my marriage. faithful friends have seen this for years, as i creep closer to that line. however, back to my point. the emotions i experienced on saturday were so outrageously out of proportion to the events at hand, and certainly misplaced in their target. i'll spare you the tawdy & tired read-through of the litany of sins visited upon my peace of mind. just know i was pissed in a big way. so the point is that the years leading up to the actual Menopause, are called perimenopause. this is because at any given time, you may, or may not, have a period. maybe today for 3 weeks, then not again for 6 months. maybe for 6 months, then not again for 2 days. you never know. although you can pretty much count on being 100 miles from the nearest full service store in, oh, say, the woods of new hampshire, and BAM out of nowhere after 6 months, you get it. just sayin. so all that estrogen has been stored up, and suddenly a tsunami of it floods your system (remember this is not medically concise) floods your system and as you feel what may be your appendix or possibly something sharp caught on a fallopian tube, this just horrible blind rage hits and doesn't stop till BAM - your period. with all the intensity of something that's been waiting 6 months to torment you. then of course, the weeping and the chocolate eating and nothing fits and on & on. i lost the track of my purely-for-your- informational style early on, didn't i? i'm sorry. but there's a lot more to this menopause stuff than i ever dreamed. and it's important to know what may come so you don't confuse it with insanity. some women have no symptoms whatsoever. so they say. some have them all. i just want to get out on the other side and wear a ton of Bluefish clothing and be cheeky. so ask your doctor about this. read a book about it. ask someone you know about it - someone like my real estate agent who won't lie or sugarcoat. i can only tell you my side of it. which i'm happy to do. just ask. so that's my public service for the day. time to chill on some tryptophan and edamame. L