Category: Writing

Menopause…or “Perry”-Menopause?

Published on by J. Kelland Perry7 Comments

So here I am, on a frigid January evening. Outside, a bitter wind chill of minus 10 degrees Celsius (that’s 14+ degrees for you Fahrenheit folks), is blowing directly off the North Atlantic just a few yards from our door. My husband Paul is gone playing floor hockey at the high school gym, so I’m alone, trying desperately to chill out. Not figuratively, mind you, but literally. I turned down the thermostats so there is  no heat on in my house, simply because my body feels like a furnace turned up on cremate.

This is a new and fresh hell for yours truly, only making itself known within the last couple of weeks. Somehow, I had let myself believe I’d be lucky enough to escape the discomfort of “tropical moments” at this time of my life. How I used to chuckle when one of my friends or coworkers complained of a hot flash. Ha! The joke is now on me. And for the uninitiated, it doesn’t feel like a source of external heat that hits you. It’s more like internal spontaneous combustion, where you think you just might suddenly burst into flames.

Stripped down to a tank top and appropriately, sweat pants, eating blueberries out of the freezer (still frozen), I’m trying to hold it together. I made the mistake earlier of googling other menopause symptoms, and started ticking off other lovely ailments I’ve been experiencing. Brain fog? Check. Anxiety? Check. Night sweats? Check. Mood swings? Okay, that one is just me, can’t blame that on The Change.

The website also warned that the whole process could take anywhere from two to eight years before it is done. That’s just terrific. Think I’ll go out and stick my head in a snow bank.

And now Paul is home. “It’s freezing here!” he says. He looks at my red face. “Is it alright if I turn up the heat?”

“If you must,” I bark, fanning myself with a throw cushion.

Then I realize something. In our house, PMS always stood for Paul Must Suffer. Well, the PMS might be coming to an end for me, but it won’t be ending for him any time soon. Will he survive? Will I?

Check back in two to eight years.

Follow the Yellow Brick Road…

Published on by J. Kelland Perry12 Comments

Hello, and welcome to my Journal! This is my first foray into the world of blogging, so being a total newbie at this, I am not even sure where my words will take us. The one thing I can tell you, Dear Reader, is that Jennifer’s Journal will be a sharing of my thoughts in the forms of prose, poetry and musings. As well, I plan to include selections of photography that I think you will like.

New Year’s Eve 2011 is upon us, and 2012 beckons with promise. I should be getting gussied up for the Ball at the Barbour site here in Newtown in a few hours, the first one in several years for us. I should be primping and preening, painting my nails, curling my locks and donning a frock to ring in the new year in style with the local revelers. Instead, I’ve happened upon The (wonderful) Wizard of Oz, a movie that has hijacked my attention for the hundredth time.

And once again, I ask myself, What is it about the Scarecrow (always my favorite), that makes my silly heart melt? Is it the way he falls about in his straw-filled pants, like he hasn’t a bone in his body, or is it the way he talks so kindly to Dorothy, making me wish I was her? Yes, I smile at the Tin Man, and I laugh at the Cowardly Lion, but it is the Scarecrow that makes me PVR the rest of the movie before I am reluctantly pulled away.

And I know it is the last day of the year, but I didn’t want to wait for January One, which would have been the expected start date of a blog. I had to ask that very important question today.

Perhaps, Dorothy has the answer?

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