Toxic Shock Syndrome

Stress free living looks much like a Wes Anderson character

One week out of the month I worry I might get Toxic Shock Syndrome, and die. After I shower I think, "Did I take the last one out?" There is only so much feeling around before I resolve with shaky certainty that I can insert a new one.
The tampon removal lapse in memory is one of those moments where I should say, "Alicia, why not take better note next time when you remove it before the shower. Like say out loud, 'I'm taking the tampon out!' so you don't fucking forget every time."
Instead I say something like, "OK, dumb dumb, your fucking halfway through your period life, you should have this shit figured out by now."
This is not the type of positive thinking to promote change in behavior.
I'm conditioned to react this way after listening to my mom call herself an idiot my entire life. She does it out of habit. After a long diatribe where she touts her stance on things, and then when she comes to her conclusion, she wraps it up by saying, "What do I know though?" or, "But I'm so dumb, and don't really know much."
Always quick to come to her defense, I say, "Well, it sounded like you knew a lot! Jeez, why do you say that kind of stuff?" and my mom always replies, "I'm just talking, Alicia," as in, "I don't really mean I'm stupid when I call myself stupid."
I know why my mom calls herself stupid in a self deprecating way. It's because her mom says it. My Grandma Jackie has the kind of background that might make a person consider her stupid. She was raised in Missouri, and married at 14. She tells me stories of how, as a little girl, when she was sitting on the toilet in the outhouse and heard the train coming, she would swing the door open and wave hello at the passing train. She widowed very young, and had the sense to never go down that road again, because she got it right the first time around. Now she enjoys her leisure time, reading books and traveling.

I am watching the movie Unbroken. At first, I thought the movie was going to be retired Abercrombie and Fitch models dressed up as soldiers playing guns, but this shit took a turn for the worse, and is hard to watch. I am at the part where he is being punched in the face by his fellow prisoners. I wonder why I ever started watching this movie because it is making me sick.
I had to fix a clogged toilet today, and felt so sorry for myself. I was gagging while plunging the toilet, but now I realize just how stupid it was to feel such disturbance. I wouldn't call myself stupid, but I will acknowledge my behavior as stupid. Pitying myself for having to unclog a toilet is pretty self indulgent considering there are people in the world floating on a raft in the middle of the ocean slowly dying, or prisoners being decapitated and their heads paraded around on spikes.
Unbroken delivered an unexpected shock syndrome. It's not toxic, but certainly penetrating and lingering. Fucking reevaluate the shit I am complaining about because I should be grateful there is not a bird man following me around and beating me in the face with giant bamboo sticks.
Don't stress out about such innocuous things as tampons, and my mom and grandma harmlessly insulting themselves.
 A theme of Unbroken is self worth, and we preform as well as we expect ourselves to. I put this little lesson in my pocket, and can add a bit from my bedtime reading with Kiki. In Charlotte's Web, Wilbur goes ballistic after he is told by the bitchy sheep he is going to be killed by Mr. Zuckerman, Charlotte tells Wilbur she will save him and to live by these words, "Never hurry and never worry." Obviously, we are not as naive as Wilbur, and know that we will die eventually, but luckily we don't have any belief we will be consumed by something other than the earth. So never hurry and, especially, never worry because the worst that could happen is the least memorable moment in ones life. (cough cough, I am talking about the death part)

In retrospect, it wasn't so bad.