Blog Update!
For those of you not following me on Facebook, as of the Summer of 2019 I've moved to Central WA, to a tiny mountain town of less than 1,000 people.

I will be covering my exploits here in the Cascades, as I try to further reduce my impact on the environment. With the same attitude, just at a higher altitude!

Monday, April 30, 2012

Do women genetically own the bitchslap face?

A male friend of mine asked me the other day my thoughts on something he had been mulling over. He had experienced many times over the years what he described as a physical facial reaction by women that bordered on intense distaste over some really minor things.

You know it, it's the look of disgust/exasperation/worthlessness shot your way by the fairer of the species when she doesn't like something. It's the kind of look you'd expect if you just told her you ate her baby. But, in reality, you just did something like put an item in the wrong recycling bin. Or took the last spoon in the lunchroom.

Now, before you get your collective panties in a bunch, not all women do this. Just certain ones. I've known them myself and I don't quite understand how they think they can socially get away with it. I have too much respect for others to willy-nilly pull out the primate look of mean. It just doesn't communicate any message I want to send across.

We were trying to figure out why (some) women do this, yet men don't. I've never seen a man use a similar facial expression, no matter the circumstances. It reminded me of the primate facial expression charts from Ye Olde Anthropology classes I took.

I suspect women do this as a throwback to their, historically speaking, limited physical and social power. Letting you know, straight out, that she's upset about something without verbally, or physically, having to do anything beyond "the look". As in, do not even think about taking advantage of me in those bushes. Or, in modern terms, do not even think about putting that plastic in the food waste bin.

More interestingly, humans seem to share a number of similar expressions with chimpanzees and other apes, but I wonder if female chimps own the look of disgust/exasperation as well. In any case, have you experienced this yourself? Do you know men that facially react in a similar way? Or are you the queen of the bitchslap face?

Oh, and for those of you who doubt the similarities in primate behavior, I present you this:


Thursday, April 26, 2012

The life of your DivaCup

Warning: Graphic Pictures Ahead

I've been using the DivaCup for almost 5 years now. For those of you not in the know, the DivaCup is a silicone reusable menstrual cup. You slap it in, cup side upside, and empty it twice a day. And, yes, I've been using the exact same cup. Month after month. Year after bloody year.

When I first started using it, the manufacturer advertised that it would last 20+ years. Or something like that. Then they retracted that and said to replace it every year. Some legal, government standards, CYA move or other. I still think that's ridiculous. Mostly because it's perfectly usable for far longer than one year. Clearly, I've been rocking the same one for 5.

However, I have to say, maybe they have a point. You see, I've kind of lost the sheer delight of stuffing a relatively uncomfortably stiff, golf-ball sized hunk of plastic up my tender goodies. And not just for the unpleasure part. But because it, well, looks revolting. Years of being exposed to, how shall we say, menstrual bits, have stained it. So, rather than looking like a pristine, new clear-white cup like below:


it looks more like this:



Ah, I'm just kidding. This is an image of the remains of a DivaCup that went up in flames. I really couldn't bring myself to photograph my nasty old cup. I'm not that gross.

Anyway, I was wondering if any of you have the same problem as me. Dark red stained cups. Bordering on brown. Any trick to restoring its original luster? If not, I'm going to replace mine just because I'm sick of being disgusted five days a month.