Category / Menopause

by Baroness Buttercup

Chin Hairs, Hot Flashes & You

I spend quite a bit of time on the Twitter these days. I’m not one to follow a bunch of celebrities — although, Melissa Etheridge did like my Bring Me Some Water post when I tweeted it, which kind of had me swooning for a couple of days. But aside from a select few famous people I truly admire, my feed is nearly void of celeb tweets.

Melissa Like

Instead, I’ve surrounded myself with other #bloggers, people from the #writingcommunity and those interested in, or dealing with, #mentalhealth issues. In addition to being incredibly warm, welcoming and supportive, I find that a good number of people in these groups are also fairly young. This shouldn’t, and doesn’t, surprise me. After all, social media tends to be a young person’s game, so it stands to reason the people I’m interacting with would be on the youthful side. Continue reading →

by Baroness Buttercup

Downward Facing Blog

I recently came to the conclusion that I need to get my shit together health-wise. I was never what you’d call a fitness buff — I ran for a while, I boxed for a while, I biked for a while, but I never stuck with anything. However, I always maintained a healthy weight for my height.

Then this menopause thing happened. You know how when the auto plant or the steel mill shuts down and the surrounding area goes to hell in a handbasket? That’s pretty much what happened to my body when my ovary popped its last egg and went out of business. And that’s ovary — singular. I only have the one. A few years ago, the other one got a little too big for its britches. Literally. Rather than being the standard walnut-size, mine had reached baseball proportions, so it had to go! Continue reading →

by Baroness Buttercup

Bring Me Some Water

I don’t know if you’ve noticed among people on Twitter (hell, I don’t even know if you’re on Twitter and in a position to notice), but there are those who use their little profile space to get very specific about their sexual orientation and/or gender identity. Rarely do you see something that just says plain, old lesbian.  Well, unless she’s got a rather non-descript appearance and is wandering through her twilight years, I guess …

What I mean, though, is that you don’t see many people who just identify as a lesbian or a gay man. You know, there was a time when being a single sexual-orientation had quite the cachet. We protested the injustices, we took to the streets, we paved the way toward tolerance and acceptance. And when I say “we,” of course, I mean a bunch of other people with cultural awareness and a sense of right and wrong that extended beyond their own wants and needs. Continue reading →

by Baroness Buttercup

I Just Woke Up Like This

scale 2I woke up fat not long ago. Not Lifetime Network and TLC fighting for the rights to my story fat, but definitely heavier than I’ve ever been. And logically I know it happened over time, but the older I get, the faster time seems to fly. Remember how long it took to go from your 16 year milestone of getting a driver’s license to your 21 year milestone of being able to drink legally? Eons! I had to drink illegally for years just to cope with time’s refusal to hurry the hell up. Those were the slowest five years of my life. Do you know how long the most recent five years took to pass? About 37 minutes. At this rate I’ll be dead before I finish this post. Continue reading →

by Baroness Buttercup

There’s A Hole in My Bucket List

0087 bucket 1I don’t have a bucket list. There are places I’d like to visit or re-visit, and a few things I want to try, many of them legal. But if that last day comes and I haven’t done them all, I’m not going to flounce out of the room in a huff, declaring my entire life a waste of time as I slam my bedroom door, fling myself on my bed and die … either out of spite or because flouncing and flinging can be dangerous in one’s twilight year Continue reading →

by Baroness Buttercup

Why Isn’t There A Menopause Movie?

AAN3PYOne day, when I was in the 6th or 7th grade, the boys and the girls in my class were separated and shown “the film.” The main thing I remember about “the film” was that it didn’t live up to the hype. Unlike Red Asphalt, the movie we were shown a few years later in Driver’s Ed and which was very likely the cause of more than a few cases of PTSD.
Continue reading →