When I was in fifth and sixth grade, this is the menstruation video they showed us. I had no idea it was a Disney film and I’m shocked to find it here. I distinctly remember the girl riding the bicycle and telling me that it’s okay to exercise while I’m on my period. I had no idea that it was ever considered NOT okay to exercise while I was on my period, much less shower.

There is nothing inaccurate about this video. It explains things well. The only thing is it isn’t PRACTICAL. I didn’t need to know why I was menstruating, although that information is nice to know. I needed to know how to use those sticky pads. My mom had long ago moved on to tampons. The last time she used feminine napkins they were kept in place with a belt. A BELT!

My mom actually gave me a feminine napkin belt when I started menstruating because she hadn’t even heard of those new fangled pads that just stick to your underwear.

And all of this was before the invention of WINGS.

My biggest question was how do I attach this pad so that it doesn’t move around? How do I prevent stains on my undies? What does menstruum look like? How do I get the thing off without grossing myself out? How do I dispose of it?

NOTHING on the Internet tells me how to do this. Seriously! How can it be that I can search for this and get a ton of video responses on YouTube of girls giggling, but no helpful information? Sure you can watch a maturation video from 1954 showing you ovaries, fallopian tubes and uterii, but if you want to know how to use a pad when you’re on your period, I’m your only hope. Click on read more for all the gory details without giggling or diagrams of organs.

(Continue Reading…)

• I feel like I should post something here to prove I’m alive. Don’t have much else to say, though… I’m alive… #
• @ThomAllen Letting things go is the hardest task for me to do. I applaud you! Good job, buddy! #
• Hey all: Twitter will be offline tomorrow for 12 hours. Maybe they will be more reliable when they come back. #

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• Ike Turner died. Tina outlasted him. I’m cheering for her now. http://www.cnn.com/2007/SHOWBIZ/Music/12/12/obit.ike.turner.ap/index.html #
• Up. Considering exercising earlier today. #
• Feeling uninspired today. Gonna go exercise and see if that fixes it. #

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Stacey has been sick. I remember her coughing at the Halloween party, so she has been sick for almost two months now. She coughed through our entire trip to Las Vegas last month. She coughed through our Sub-For-Santa shopping last Sunday. She coughed when I talked to her on the phone today.

There is something about her coughing that brings me back to our childhood. She coughed all through our childhood. I used to be able to find her in a crowd by the sound of her cough. Her coughing now sounds exactly as it did when we were children. Her voice may have changed when we grew up, but her coughing hasn’t.

When I hear her cough, it stirs a childhood protection in me. I’m the older sister. I’m supposed to watch over her. I’m supposed to boss her around. We lost her and Dan in J.C. Penney’s on Sunday and I heard her cough from across the store. I was able to tell which department of the store they were in solely by ONE cough heard from yards away.

I feel like I should be worried because this cold has clung to her lungs and throat for so long, but instead, I feel like I did when we were children. Every time she coughs, it feels like I’m a child again. Grandma and Grandpa are still alive. We still live at home. Mom still protects us from Dad. The worst thing we can imagine is elementary school drama. And Christmas is coming…

• Hey Utah Geeks, @NakedJen is moving to SLC! She’s working for Sundance! #

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Start saving, folks. Every penny you earn right now might keep you alive during the Second Dot Bomb.

• Hello, Twitches. Trying to organize family stuff today. No one wants my help, so I guess I’ll just step back and be available. #
• Attention UT Geeks: Utah Social Media / Facebook Developers Garage at Twelve Horses at 7pm tonight. http://tinyurl.com/37pvlm #

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• Hello, Twitches. Trying to organize family stuff today. No one wants my help, so I guess I’ll just step back and be available. #
• Attention UT Geeks: Utah Social Media / Facebook Developers Garage at Twelve Horses at 7pm tonight. http://tinyurl.com/37pvlm #

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• Awake. Yet another blow to our family yesterday. This year has been freakin’ hell. #

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• I need to move out of UT. Glenn Beck has backed up the freeway for MILES!! #
• I’m up! I’M UP!!! Going with my family today. We’ve had a busy weekend. #

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• @Akula How did you get Twhirl to work? It won’t accept my user name and password. I KNOW they’re valid. #
• @nicolelee That’s funny! Mike and I made waffles for the first time in MONTHS today! #
• Procrastinating shoveling the snow. I just decided to quit and just shovel the white stuff! #
• That didn’t take long. Angel neighbor snowblowed my walk, so all I had to do was the tiny driveway. #
• Writing a quick entry before hitting the treadmill. #
• @meriwilliams God, I love Suzanne Vega! She just keeps on being amazing! #
• @libel_vox Go with the artificial deer meat. It tastes better… #

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The one good thing about having little is that you have little to maintain.

Yesterday, Mike and I looked at a house. We have considered moving closer to Matt and Mel and there was a house available two doors down from them. It was a little larger than the house we lived in when we lived in West Jordan. The great room alone was almost as big as our current house.

It was tempting. That great room would hold three times more geeks than our current house can hold. CodeAway could grow and we could still host it in our home. The master bedroom had one of those huge Roman tubs and a separate shower. The basement was almost finished and Mike could have had his choice of four rooms to put his office. That home gym I had to give up when we moved? It was already set up in the unfinished portion of the basement.

Yeah, it was tempting…

At least it SHOULD have been. I miss that house we used to live in, but walking through that house that should have been PERFECT for us, just filled me with anxiety. That 3818 square-foot home was carpeted. All that vacuuming. I had forgotten how much of my time had been relegated to vacuuming that West Jordan house.

That Roman tub? Yeah, it would have been a constant reminder that I need to RELAX, but whenever I did take the time to relax, I would find that the water heater doesn’t have enough hot water to fill the damn thing. I should relax in a lukewarm, half-filled tub? Nah…

All those empty rooms? We need ONE extra room, not three. What happens to rooms that are unneeded? I know I would fill them up with furniture or projects. I’d have another house full of junk that I never really used.

Last night, Mike and I realized that we CAN’T live next to Matt and Mel. We just CAN’T live in a house that big again and ALL the houses in their neighborhood are freakin’ mansions compared to where we live now.

This morning, we woke up to a foot of snow and more falling. I thought of the huge driveway at the house we visited last night and cringed. The driveway at our current house is tiny and it only took me a half hour to shovel it. My desk overlooks the front yard instead of being isolated in a room meant for a child somewhere in a cavernous house. After shoveling the heavy and slushy snow, I am happy to live in this tiny house.

• Up. I’m going to run on the treadmill now. See ya… #
• Back from my run, but now I’ve got to hurry and shower to pick up Kristen on time. #

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• Just noticed that the abbreviation "WP" has switched from WordPerfect to WordPress in my mind. Good-bye final vestiges of the 90’s… #

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At the Utah Geek Dinner last week, Joseph Scott brought WordPress t-shirts. I scrambled past anyone in my way (sorry about your toes) to get one. Ever since Nicole Lee showed off her very cool red WordPress t-shirt, I have wanted one.

Thanks, Joseph!

• I’m still 3rd on the list and my appointment was at 5:10pm. Why did I set an apt? #
• They have my iPod in the back now. I hate to see it go away from me. #
• Up. Email answered. Sold another Starling Fitness Journal :) I will be running with the old iPod today. Waiting for the new one to come in. #

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• Every pastime of mine devolves into spreadsheet analysis, even Animal Crossing. #
• Up, procrastinating workout by working. #
• @justsomeguy No, I hadn’t seen that plugin for using WordPress on my iPhone. I SO need that! Thank you!! #
• @justsomeguy Looks like you’re going to have to homebrew your DS soon! #
• @apperceptions Testing came through loud and clear. #
• At the Apple Store, waiting for a genius to fix my beloved red iPod. #

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• @Bonny Happy Birthday! #
• Finished printing and preparing 4 Starling Fitness Journal to be sent tomorrow. I’m surprised at how many have sold this month. #
• Tired, but too sad to go to bed. #
• Make iPod Ad Silhouettes using Photoshop: http://tinyurl.com/y5rra2 #
• Hand bound Journals: http://tinyurl.com/yvnqv5 I wonder if I could do this for hand publishing a book. #
• Wow… All my Twitter friends are asleep right now. I don’t want to sleep, but I’m feeling the silence of peer pressure all around me. #
• Good morning, Twitter friends! #
• @jensimmons WTF? Were you in the show? I would think you would remember it if you were filmed all the time. #
• @kitykity It’s the one downside to living away from them. I’ve considered moving MANY times to stave off the loneliness. #
• @kitykity SXSW is in March. I haven’t heard about Pixelodeon yet… #
• @basykes Use the @ sign with NO space between it and the name. #
• Back from walking 3.25 miles. I’m a little dizzy. #

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• Nightmare two hours ago. Haven’t been able to get back to sleep yet. Tried the relaxing tones of Animal Crossing, but it didn’t work. #
• Mystery sliding rocks! http://tinyurl.com/262uja #

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I am continually surprised at the search strings that put me on the first page of Google.

Pick Me! is #2 on Google for the search string, “lame excuse for not going to a party.” This is the entry that it talks about.

• Pick Me! » Excuses

The Christmas Season is here, which means there are a bunch of stupid Christmas parties that you’ll be invited to. If you don’t want to go, have the balls to say, “I’m not going to attend this year. Thanks for inviting me.”

• UT Geek Dinner @Sampan. It’s in Southtowne Mall. #
• @ashbuckles It’s on the east side of the mall. Enter on the outside. #
• Land’s End is the new porn. Better than Abercrombie: http://www.nerve.com/personalessays/stegall/personalinventory/ #

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I saw this comic on Ballard Street yesterday. “Ted has no patience for people who can’t think of anything to do.” You know what? Neither do I.

I’m NEVER bored. I always have a million things to do in my head and it’s a challenge to find the time to do them all.

Even when we were driving back to Salt Lake. I can’t watch my iPhone or play my DS because I get car sick, so I just have to sit there. What did I do? Plan a year’s worth of entries for Merriton.

I am NEVER bored because I am never being boring.

• Back from Vegas. See you all at the Blogger Dinner tomorrow night! #
• @libel_vox I told you SF is always watching. #
• Hey guys… Any of you know about this? http://www.uplej.com/ Saw a billboard in UT County. Wondering if we know who’s behind it. #
• @libel_vox I thought the same thing. Have you heard about it before now or is it new on you? #
• @libel_vox Me neither. Are we out of the loop or are they? #
• @libel_vox I’m just wondering how they figure that walking backwards can help you and others… #
• @libel_vox I guess I shoulda gone to that conference… #
• @libel_vox Cool! I guess it’s not too late! Can grownups go? I guess we could call CodeAway a "school." Only $10! #
• Tired. Time to go to bed. Twitter off. #
• Good morning, Twitches! I need more sleep, but I need to get things done that feel more important than sleep. #
• Cutest Game EVAR! Thanks, Ladanea! http://www.ferryhalim.com/orisinal/g3/bells.htm #

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A Drunken Moment in the Las Vegas Hilton Hotel room.

“Hey, don’t throw those away.”

“Why not?”

“I’m savin’ ’em for Bert.”

“Bert?”

“Yeah, they’re not as good as Figgy Fizz, but I think he’d like them.”

“Oh, BERT…”

“Yeah, he’d be all like ‘Z’ and ‘N’.”

“No more Zima for you.”

That night I realized that I can never meet Bert or Ernie. They are IMAGINARY. I can’t go to Sesame Street and give Bert the bottlecaps I’ve been saving for him over the years because he doesn’t exist. The little girl inside of me is really sad about that.

• Mike won’t let me order a Warp Core Breach at Quarks. :( #
• Packing up to go home. #
• If I hadn’t seen Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, I would have cosidered this a messy hotel room. #
• Waking up Mike. #
• @ashbuckles Good morning! #
• @ProvoBoy Yippee! It’s recess! #
• Hitting the road back to SLC. Twitter off. #

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I think I’m getting a little sick of the photo on my blog entries every day. It’s like suddenly my blog is The Laura Show! I know my blog IS the Laura show, but it reminds me of it every time I see my face.

I thought I would do this to keep my written entries feeling more personable, but they end up feeling narcissistic to me. Of course, the act of writing a weblog IS narcissistic, so I don’t know why the photos would make me notice it more.

All the photos look the same to me. The problem with wearing the same color every day is that it looks like I never change clothes.

I don’t know if I’ll keep doing this, but I’m going to try it for a little more.

• Still at the Fashion Show Mall in Vegas. Tired. Sitting on a bench. #
• I have six minutes until Nook’s opens up. I wish his store was a 24-Hour shop. #

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I love to make my own calendars. This challenge looks like something I would love to design:

• elzr: Infodesign challenge

Of all the entrants, I like this calendar the best:

It doesn’t look quite right, mostly because I can’t read the language it’s in, but it looks ingenious. I’ll have to play around with it to see if I can make one that’s useful.

Via: Design challenge: design a business card-sized year-long calendar that doesn’t… (kottke.org)

• Free Xmas Tags to Download: http://tinyurl.com/29ncvo #

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What did we do today? We woke up late. I’m not talking normal late. We woke up really late, like 10 am. Then we stayed in bed for about an hour after that.

Hunger got us out of bed and to the nearest El Pollo Loco. Spicy chicken and flan. They’ve added chicken tamales to the menu, so we had to try them.

We dropped off some mail at the post office, and then hit Fry’s Electronics. We made the mistake of going there on the day after Thanksgiving. They were swamped with people and they had sixty checkout registers open and every single one of them busy. Today, however, it was just a normal crowd. I was able to look at all the geek toys for as long as I wanted.

Then we drove around, trying to think of what to do. What did we decide? We went to Von’s grocery store. We didn’t really need anything. We just like looking at grocery stores in different parts of the country.

Dinner at the hotel cafe and time on the computer. We played some video games on the DS against each other and now I’m typing. Mike is practicing guitar.

After two very busy days in Las Vegas, it’s so nice to just be lazy.

I have this little philosophy about writing. I don’t do bad reviews. I feel like there are so many good things out in the world to rave about that I don’t need to waste my time on the bad things.

Man, we had a bad experience at Buffalo Bill’s Hotel and Casino. I would write about it on Starling Travel, but I have that pesky policy about not writing bad reviews.

I blew off steam with Mike, Stacey and Dan with a Warp Core Breach at Quarks Bar at the Las Vegas Hilton on Friday night and yesterday we checked out of Buffalo Bill’s and checked into the Las Vegas Hilton because of it.

Update 11-29-07: Okay, I DO do bad reviews. They sent me a survey email and the stupid thing crashed, so I wasn’t able to tell them about our awful experience. I told the Internet instead:

• Starling Travel » Don’t Stay At Buffalo Bill’s Hotel and Casino

We were driving to Vegas on Thursday. After a plateful of turkey, I was able to make it more than halfway before I got sleepy. Mike took the second shift driving.

When he started driving, I took out my camera and snapped some photos of myself and tried to film us driving. I got so much footage of me saying, “Why can’t it focus?” This Sanyo E1 is great in the dark, but has a hard time focusing on the Stratosphere when it’s 20 miles away.

PostSecret usually posts their secrets on Sunday, but I noticed that they didn’t post last Sunday. This Wednesday, however, a group of secrets showed up.

This postcard from PostSecret sounds so familiar I could have written it myself. I love that it got a little damaged in the mailing process and part of it is ripped off.

I am still haunted by the thought, “I want to go home.” I hear my inner voice saying that a lot and I have no idea what it means. I’ve talked about it before here:

• Pick Me! » I Want To Go Home

Do I want to go back to the house on White Cherry Way? The family that lives there probably wouldn’t appreciate me barging into their house. I’m sure they don’t appreciate how many times I drive by.

Do I want to go back to being a child and living with my parents? No. I’m happy as an adult.

Do I want to go back to Montana? Hell no.

Have I never truly found a home since I left my parents? Maybe that’s it, but if I can’t create a home of my own by now, will I ever be able to?

Hello, mystery postcard sender: I just want to go home too. Can you point me in the right direction?

PostSecret‘s beneficiary is the National Hopeline Network. It is a 24-hour hotline (1 (800) SUICIDE) for anyone who is thinking about suicide or knows someone who is considering it.

Today we leave for Vegas right after Thanksgiving dinner with Mike’s parents. We’re meeting Stacey and Dan down there.

Is it wrong to go to Las Vegas just to eat? Our main goal when we get there is to try all the wing places. We have three days and three places to eat spicy wings. That’s it. Aside from the normal pilgrimage to Fry’s we have nothing else planned.

I feel like I should feel guilty for traveling almost four hundred miles just to eat chicken wings, but I’m not feelin’ it at all. I’m just happy to have a couple of days out of the house, out of the town and out of my head.

Lots of driving to do today. Weather.com’s website is freaking useless to find out what the driving conditions are going to be. Let’s hope for no snow and an easy drive after all that turkey.

• @Zadi I’m syncing my iPhone right now! #
• @jensimmons kottke.org actually posted a mention of Black Friday from the late 1800’s. #
• @Trula Don’t apologize to misc. We can only follow so many people. We HAVE to be picky. Good job culling the herd. #
• @Trula True enough. Props to you for apologizing. #
• @ThomAllen I never "got" Radiohead. I liked Creep, but nothing else ever rung with me. Just skipped the "free" album altogether. #
• Working, gotta run, take the animals to the kennel and write a bunch of entries. Ack! Laundry too! #

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Over on Starling Fitness, I talked about Dear Abby’s photograph:

• Starling Fitness » Abigail Van Buren’s Photograph

The only problem is that Dear Abby wasn’t real. Sure, there was a real person, Pauline Esther Friedman Phillips, who was the writer until Alzheimer’s took her abilities away from her. But the woman behind that never-aging face wasn’t real.

I’m real. My face changes. When I’ve been bingeing, my face changes dramatically.

I started posting a self portrait on each entry. It actually gives me a reason to get up and get showered every morning.

Do I really need a reason to get up and get showered? Yeah…

I have that photo that I took in April and played with until it looks “cool,” but I really like posting a new photo every time I post. Even if I’m ugly or unhappy, I think it’s a good idea. It gives a face to what I’m talking about every day.

I realized that I really liked the idea when I saw my photo on some RSS aggregator today. It was an excerpt from my Starling Fitness entry and my photo. For some reason, I just liked seeing a face to go with what was being said. It was strange when I realized that it was MY face, but it showed me how important it is to have a face attached to my words.

I think I’ll post my byline photo for every entry here as well.

I am working on Merriton to get it proof-read and corrected and pretty and looking good so it can go to the printer. Mike has done this many times, but I never have. It’s pretty much to the point where I can think about sending it out. After looking at Lulu, it looks like they can print them up for as cheap as I can, so I’m tempted to just use them instead of trying to do it myself.

I really like the idea of hand-publishing my book until I actually do it. I’ve been hand-publishing my Starling Fitness Yearly Journals and they take a long time to put together. The idea of doing it for Merriton is daunting.

Plus, I want it to look GOOD. With Lulu, I only have to pay for one book to get set up with them and then they’ll do all the hard parts.

I still haven’t decided yet.

• Up and waiting for Nook’s to open so I can sell fruit. #
• Twitter on CSI: http://youtube.com/watch?v=YT5yCnEr8kQ #
• Oh man! Twitter IM isn’t working again!! #
• @alizasherman Sending good karma your way. #

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I’m feeling so tired right now. We had a really busy weekend with CodeAway and an early Thanksgiving with my family. I still haven’t finished taking the folding chairs down to the basement. I’ve got one more to go and I’ll take it down next time. For now, it’s just sitting in the living room.

We are at a turning point with CodeAway. It’s getting too big for our tiny house. We are continually tempted to upgrade to a bigger house and this might be the impetus to get us to do it. Voluntary Simplicity is something I have to focus on to achieve. The idea of just getting a bigger place is so tempting right now.

• Good morning, Twitches! #
• @Ladanea How did the gymnastics meet go? #
• This clock is cool… http://home.tiscali.nl/annejan/swf/timeline.swf #
• @Ladanea Congratulations! #
• @wbaustin Good mornin’ back at cha! #
• Finished with email. Going to RSS. #
• @Ladanea Wow, harsh blog entry on gym mothers. http://tinyurl.com/2yxper #
• Nicole Lee tried Bacon Chocolate: "The bacon kinda weirds me out." http://tinyurl.com/2chpev #
• @shawnz I would put the month on the top and work down if I were to make a meatspace version. #
• Bored with RSS. Gonna go play AC #

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