Raw Drip

As I was chatting with a co-worker the other day, she mentioned that her 3-year old daughter’s daycare isn’t having an “Easter” party this year because a parent complained last year about Easter being too religious.  So this year her daycare is celebrating “Bunny Day”.

Bunny Day?  I’ ve been around for awhile now and I’ve never heard of anyone celebrating Bunny Day.  Maybe Hugh Hefner…?  But a classroom full of 3 & 4 year olds have no clue what’s going on.  All they know is that they’re being given jelly beans and chocolate without having to listen or behave.

That being the case, why the knee-jerk reaction?  Why suck all the joy and ease out of our traditional holiday naming schemes to potentially avoid offending a handful of people?  Just because a holiday has religious traditions as part of it’s celebration doesn’t mean there aren’t plenty of secular traditions for everyone to enjoy.  Why can’t calling it “Easter” be part of both traditions?

Here’s my idea: YOU celebrate your Easter holiday your way and leave ME to celebrate my Easter holiday my way and we can each call it whatever we want.  I’m all for individual expression, but publicly, let’s agree to refer to it in whatever way the bulk of society finds recognizable, okay? 

Because when you invite me and my family over for ”Bunny Dinner”, I get a little leery…

When Dick (aka Tech Support) registered Raw Drip for me he also created a Google Analytics account so I can see some basic web stats, mainly who’s visiting, how long they’re staying on my site, and what kinds of keywords they’re using to find me.  Honestly, I don’t really use or understand most of the features.  I just love to click on the colorful little map icon to see how many states and countries are reading me.  It’s so cool.

But a recent review of the keyword searches some of you’ve used to find Raw Drip are, well, disturbing.  With little more than a few bizarre keywords to go on, I’ve reached three conclusions about you.

1) You’re poop-obsessed

Searching for terms like “newborn poop explosive stinky watery”, “poo explosion” and “baby shit” can only point to someone who is poo-sessed.  I’m a little sympathetic here, as I recall the days of new parenting – monitoring every bit of solid waste emerging from my newborn infant – analyzing its frequency, color, consistency, and odor. 

These days, I continue to suffer from my own bit of fecal fixation with my days spent cleaning up both literal and metaphorical poop.  Funny how life progresses, eh?  You start out pooping in your pants, then you learn to poop in the potty, then you develop a potty mouth and learn to talk shit about people, then you start cleaning up other people’s poop, and finally, you end up back at square one – pooping in your pants again. 

2) You’re into porn 

Okay, so you’re searching for “raw penis”, “penis dripping”, and ”porn” clearly you’re looking for a little action – or some online urology expertise.

3) You’re a complete nut-job

And, then there are the few of you who defy explanation.   

• Who goes online and searches for pictures of “People shitting on autoflush toilets”?  Plural?  That’s some VERY specific searching going on there.  
• ‘Fess up – which one of you has been searching for “Anderson Cooper sex Yeti on Mars”?  Now, I don’t know Mr. Cooper personally, but something tells me that he’s probably not into Yeti sex and it’s doubtful that he’s been to Mars lately.  I could be wrong… 
• “Bob the Builder and Wendy having sex” – I’m amused (and mildly sickened) that Raw Drip was one of the results of your search.

One thing I’ve learned through my exploration of keywords - my blog continues to be as meandering and unfocused as it’s always been.  I’m not sure I’m too keen on changing that.  I kind of like that fact that I don’t fall neatly into a category.  Raw Drip – not really a meal, not really a dinner. 

So, I guess rambling is my style.  Even if it’s not, I think I’m going to continue to play topical hopscotch with you just for the fun of discovering how fascinating and weird you are.   Thank you for being so entertaining.

I’m guessing it might be taboo to discuss one’s gynecological issues in a blog, so my apologies in advance.  I suppose if you’re a male reading this post, you probably saw the word “ovary” in the title and moved onto the ESPN website.  I don’t blame you, really.  Believe it or not, we women don’t actually spend a lot of time thinking about our sex organs.  This is in sharp contrast to men, who spend most of their time thinking and talking about theirs.  But, of course, neither gender likes to think of their sex organs in a clinical sense – it’s uncomfortable, at best.  You’re just going to have to trust me on this, my story, while being rooted in the female anatomy is too weird not to share. 

Perhaps it’s a lack of attention on my part that prompted my left ovary to leave the building?  Suddenly, I’m down one and I still can’t figure out what went wrong.  I thought things were pretty good between us.  I mean, sure, we had our problems, but we always managed to work them out.  And with two ovaries, I assume loneliness or exhaustion wasn’t a big factor in my ovary’s decision to leave.  Whenever one gets tired, the other one is there to step in and take over for the next month.  Nice ying & yang, right?

Apparently, not so.  The ultrasound I had last week in the hospital confirms it – sometime between my last medical exam in 2006 and 2 weeks ago, my left ovary disappeared.  This leads to all sorts of questions.  Where did it go? How did it leave?  Why?  Is it just floating around in my body somewhere?  Do I have to worry about it getting stuck in an artery and killing me or coughing it up next time I have a really bad chest cold?  And, if it’s really gone – how did it leave?  I mean, I kind of just assumed I’d notice if an entire organ left my body.  I bet if my liver just decided to detach itself and walk away, I’d notice that. 

But the really big question is why.  Why would my left ovary just leave like that – without a note or a card or anything?  As with the unexpected end of any relationship, I keep combing through our time together and wondering what I could have done to make things work.   Maybe it was the two pregnancies in two years?  Perhaps lefty just got fed up with all the ovulating?  Or, maybe, the relationship with righty wasn’t as harmonious as I’ve envisioned?  Maybe there was a power struggle of some sort - jealous, back-stabbing, destructive behavior that drove lefty away? Or, maybe righty was a slacker and lefty was forced to carry all the workload.

Me and my ovaries have invested a lot of time with one another.  Heck, they’ve been there since the very beginning – releasing hormones (often haphazardly, it seems to me) and spurting out eggs with semi-regularity.  I always took it for granted that we’d be together forever.   In fact, I was so sure of it, that I went to great lengths to make sure they were well cared for.  Any ovary of mine gets regular check-ups and the privilege of living in a body that is most definitely NOT suffering from malnourishment.

So, why?  Why did you leave, lefty?  Could it have been the time I cursed you for giving me all those debilitating cramps? Or, could it have been the fact that I blamed you for a lot of my irrational decisions over the years?   I’m sure I bear some responsibility here. 

But even a tiny scrap of understanding is cold comfort.  Somewhere along the way,  you lost hope and you left me, lefty.  I guess my challenge is to make peace with your loss and put the past behind me.  It’s hard.  My ovary may have gotten over me, but I’m not going to get over my ovary so easily.