This video reminds me of dancing at the Ritz and The Palladium so much. I’m shocked that I didn’t know even one person in the video, though.

In 1986, I pretty much only went to The Palladium when The Ritz was closed, so that would have been Sundays and Mondays, I think. Dawni and I had a schedule where we could go dancing EVERY night of the week but I don’t think there was a week in which we actually did that.

What surprises me so much is that all of that seemed so very fun and normal to me. Looking at it almost 25 years later, it doesn’t look normal at all. The weirdest of all is that I don’t really want to go back. It was fun back then, but life is WAY better now.

I saw these images from A New Leaf in Everfree, and I thought I’d make them into an animated GIF.

It’s also for reading in the mountains, on the porch and in the camper. I love reading outside. I don’t know what makes it better than reading indoors, but somehow it is better.

I was looking at Tumblr and Feel Good Inc. posted a bunch of these animated gifs from an episode of Roseanne from 1989.

It’s from this episode:

Fast forward to the 17:19 mark to see the conversation. I am so grateful to Roseanne Barr for this episode.

I’m approaching menopause. Every once and a while, I get the night sweats and have hot flashes for seemingly no reason. I have had a lovely life with my monthly menstruation. Truly magical, just like Roseanne told me I would.

“Now you get to be part of the whole cycle of things. You know, the moon and the water and the seasons. It’s almost magical… You should be really proud today, ’cause this is the beginning of a lot of really wonderful things in your life.”

Even though I was already an adult when I saw this episode, it helped me. It helped me love being a woman in a way that I have enjoyed every month. I recently talked to my mom about menopause and she said that she was happy to have it come because then she didn’t have a monthly curse. I told her that I never thought of it as a curse. It made me feel connected to the earth and the cycle of life on this planet. She said, “You never got that from me.”

I realized she was right. I didn’t get that from my mother. I got it from Roseanne Barr. Thank you! Thank you for that episode so many years ago that touched me so profoundly. Now that I have moved to the phase beyond this one, I will learn to accept it with just as much grace and gratitude as my mother did.

Update 09-11-14

It makes me so sad that some people imagine that THIS is what being a woman is about. Via: WIL WHEATON dot TUMBLR — via /r/trollxchromosomes

It reads:

Seriously, though your period is like coming home one day and finding that your spouse has constructed this entire new baby bedroom inside your house and you have to tell them “Sweetie we don’t have a baby” and then your spouse FLIPS THE FUCK OUT like “The FUCK do you mean we don’t have a baby I DID ALL THIS WORK” and then they spend the next week tearing the whole room apart and throwing it out into the street and screaming at you and then finally when the room is completely gutted they calm down and say “It’s okay hon we’ll have a baby next month” and then they start building the room again AND THIS SHIT KEEPS GOING FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE UNTIL YOU HIT LIKE 50 AND THEN YOUR SPOUSE LEAVES YOU BUT NOT BEFORE SETTING THE WHOLE HOUSE ON FIRE SO IT’S NEVER THE SAME AGAIN

Someone didn’t get the same maturation lesson that I did and THANK GOD for Roseanne, because I never once felt like this about my own body during menstruation and I have her to thank for it. I am literally saddened to the point of tears for whomever wrote this. We are so much more than that vision of our bodies.