what women spend half their lives panicking about.

Being a woman is tough. Not only are we underpaid, overworked, objectified, stifled and otherwise made to feel like pieces of shit on a daily basis, we also are responsible for propagating the species. As such, our minds and bodies are never totally in sync. Even if the thought of reproducing makes us want to wretch, sometimes our uteri have other plans. There's a reason they're called "pregnancy scares." Women live in constant fear of being knocked up.

Even if you've been very careful, warning bells start to go off every time something in your body is out of wack. Tender breasts? You're up the duff. Fatigue? Absolutely preggo. Heartburn? Even if you ate Taco Bell that day, you can convince yourself that it's the result of a burrowing embryo. You assume the condom broke and you never noticed, or there was a pinprick you somehow overlooked. You rehash the day you took your birth control two hours late. You gasp in horror as you remember the moment you accidentally put on semen-stained underwear. You annoy the crap out of yourself with your obsessive thinking. The only time you're ever free of your neuroses is menopause (I've got about 25 years to go), or a month you don't have sex - which, if you're me, is non-existent. I think I've only gone intercourse-free for two menstrual cycles in eight years.

I remember having my first fertilization fright at the tender age of 16. I had unprotected sex with a much older man (brilliant, I know), and I remember my paranoia intensifying as my period remained in absentia for over a week. How was I going to explain this to my parents? Hadn't I learned my lesson from taking home that fake baby that cries in the middle of the night? The only thing I was able to glean from that experiment was that I could probably lie down next to a foghorn and sleep soundly. I'm immune to obnoxious baby cries! I don't know how to change a diaper! I'd be a terrible mother! I have to get an abortion! I don't have any money! My dad will cry because I'm a failure!

Of course, all this worry was for naught. I got my period. I made it through high school and college and a myriad of sex partners without a single positive pregnancy test. Now, I'm on a precipice. After two weeks of waiting patiently for my tardy menses, I'm preparing to take a test to confirm or deny the existence of a bun in the oven. Despite the fact that I have decent health insurance and a supportive spouse, I am freaking out.

Now that I'm married, everyone says it's not a big deal. I disagree. It's not an occasion to celebrate. It's not a blessing in disguise. It's a pain in the ass. Just because I actually intend on spending the rest of my life with the person who potentially impregnated me doesn't mean I'm thrilled about gestating. My husband is currently unemployed and my car doesn't even have air conditioning. I can't be responsible for another human being. My ovaries should know better.

Can't guess? It's the international symbol for a worst nightmare.

If I am pregnant, I know what I will do. I have the money to deal with it. It still doesn't allay the anxiety. Even women I know who already have children still get nervous whenever that time of the month rolls around. It's one of those things they never tell you about womanhood, like period diarrhea and those stray hairs that you have to pluck out of your chin. Our only consolation is that moment in which we divulge to our female friends our predicament... and they know exactly how we feel. At least we all suffer together.

UPDATE: Well, I got a visit from the crimson typhoon. But it took almost eight weeks - and you better believe I'll be in full-on panic mode in another five. Welcome to womanhood.

talking 'bout my (so sad, so sorry) generation.

 The other night I watched "Reality Bites" for the first time of my twenties. I had seen the movie when I was younger, but the message was not quite as clear or relevant as it appears now that I'm older.

I know it speaks to the issues faced by those a bit older than me, but I find my own generation is not too far behind. We struggle with the same demons - inherent desire to do well, but a lack of resources, and a sense of entitlement that mismatches the opportunities available to us. We were the generation who were told that we were 'special' - special enough, it now seems, to be saddled with economic collapse, environmental catastrophe and financial ruin. The Greatest Generation cash their Social Security checks; the baby boomers sleep at night knowing they did the best they could by their children; even Generation X came out of their existential crises to own America's homes and run America's companies. We are left with astronomical student loans, a dismal job market and no chance of ever retiring.

Without going too far into detail about the logistics of my current life, things are a little tough right now. My grandmother is very ill. I received some good news about work but it has yet to come to fruition, and I am feeling somewhat disillusioned. My endlessly bright and talented husband has been forced to apply for internships, despite the fact that he just received a master's degree. The world seems like a hostile place, and I'm not sure I'm ready for the implications of real life.

I guess I perform it every day; I wake up, get myself to work on time. I perform numerous tasks, ranging from the challenging to the mundane. I go home and play the role of wife, daughter, friend. In all of this, I feel the slip of things I used to do when time wasn't so wrapped up in itself, when things weren't so dictated. I wrote poems. I made collages. I obsessed about all of my relationships. I felt, often it wasn't pure and often it was overly dramatic, but I felt, and I had the pursuit of finding myself to guide the forward motion of my life. Desperation only existed in my head. Things weren't so final. Possibilities were endless.

Now, I find myself adrift, just another Lelaina of a generation failed. We all wanted to really be something by the time we were 23. We all swore we would break out of the chains of college, an out-of-the-box sprint toward career success. We were all given the opportunities our parents sacrificed for. Now we're working as personal trainers and waitresses and cubicle rats, numbing our minds with low-calorie beers and reality television.

I know I sound jaded. It's hard not to. Nobody wants to work at the Burger-Rama (which is why we need immigrants coming into this country, but that's a rant for another day), and nobody wants to sell out. Everyone just wants to shut their eyes and their minds and pretend that none of it is happening. Stop watching the news. Drink another Coke. Go to Walmart. Spend a fortune on a wedding. Have a baby. Get a tummy tuck. Buy some Louboutins.

Or, we can act out in little ways every day. We either change the status quo, or we die this way.

"And they wonder why those of us in our twenties refuse to work an 80-hour week... just so we can afford to buy their BMWs... why we aren't interested in the counterculture that they invented... as if we did not see them disembowel their revolution for a pair of running shoes. But the question remains... what are we going to do now? How can we repair all the damage we inherited? Fellow graduates, the answer is simple.

The answer is... The answer is... I don't know."

reason #5,724 why I am now an old lady.

Let me tell you all about my newest hobby. It's really quite thrilling. You see, I go into grocery stores to buy butter and frozen pizza and come out with puzzle books. I am a big fan, in particular, of word searches. I spend hours on end ignoring my husband while attempting to complete word searches in which I look for words like "liege" and "whiskers." Then I go to bed, not after 11 p.m. and not before complaining about how much my feet hurt and attempting to woo my cat into sleeping on the bed beside me.

It's weird when you reach this point that you realize why adults do things, and though you're conscious of this, you don't stop yourself from doing them too. Other things on this list that I've discovered include:

1. arguing about housework
2. getting a pet and treating it like it's a child
3. having less sex
4. having a drink immediately when you get home from work
5. feeling like you should go on a diet
6. placating yourself with stupid crap you don't need (like vintage luggage and xbox games)

I mean, many of these are the consequences of... responsibility. Responsibility of keeping a house, being a good partner, being successful at work and attempting to retain your sanity without absolute exhaustion. But it's hard keeping your edge, man, and with every Dell Official Word Search booklet I buy that advertises for porcelain Yorkies sitting in teacups wearing rhinestone collars, another piece of my youthful hipness dies.

Back to the puzzles. I just completed "Mustache Bash" and had the hardest fucking time trying to find "fu manchu."

why I need to stop drinking.

Yes, that's me. With a Budzilla. I don't want to talk about it.

I could basically write a tome about all the reasons I need to cut back on my alcohol consumption. If you know me, you know that I drink (and often cuss) like a sailor. I'm a firm believer that everyone has a "kicker" substance, something that once they try it, they find it's the perfect fit, and don't ever want to stop. Some people, unfortunately, find that to be heroin. I would say a good lot of people are content with weed. For me, liquor was it. At age 15, I knew I would be imbibing spirits for the rest of my life.

This affinity for hooch has made me notorious for being, well, a total lush. I am consistently named in online surveys as the "friend you drink with." and I was proud of that. for a while.

You see, now that I'm out in the "real world," I drink every day. It used to be that I'd spend the weeknights studying, or, when I was living with my parents, watching TV and passing out at 10 pm. Since I've moved in with the Stairmaster, life has been all rainbows and pinot grigio. More often than not, I can't remember how I ended up in bed when I wake up the next morning.

In no way has this problem manifested more than DRUNKEN FACEBOOKING. Oh yeah, you all know what I'm talking about. I've found recently that I've left messages:

- yelling at people for not watching movies with me (?)
- incessantly asking people for their addresses to send them invites to the WEEEDDDINNGGG (gross)
- outwardly making fun of family members (okay, moderately funny)
- giving very poor reasons whilst trying to explain why I didn't call someone on their birthday (I suck)
- admitting that I'm on the verge of a nervous breakdown and cry incessantly (crap)

Of course, many of these sad attempts at communication were, you know, misspelled.

There's nothing really quite as mortifying as alcohol-related guilt. Maybe when you were stoned you said some dumb things, but mostly, your statements were just insanely obvious, slowly vocalized, and bookended by giggles. On cocaine, everything you said was so brilliant, so genius when you thought of it, it amazed you. Although most likely, whoever you were talking to wasn't listening, because they were just wishing you would shut the hell up, because you thought you were so goddamn smart when really you were just reiterating something you heard on that stupid Wolf Blitzer show.

But the whole not knowing what you said thing is really scary. The internet leaves, essentially, a click-trail for you to follow, read the insanity you typed, and gasp in horror. It was a lot simpler when all you had to do was assume you left some slurred message on your friend's answering machine, and call them with a half-assed apology, while remaining once removed from your moronic comments.

So I have to stop drinking. Not because I'm missing work, or because I'm on my fourth DUI. Not because it's bad for my liver, not because it makes me beat the children. Because of the internet.