Last night, I did the dishes for the first time since 2007. Then I cleaned the 200-year old linoleum that serves as the floor in my “kitchen.” With Windex. And a dishtowel. It was all I had.

There are some things you shouldn’t do, like stick things up your nose or put icky things in your mouth.  When I was in kindergarten, this boy in my class, his name was Terry, stuck the wheel of a matchbox car up his nose and his mom had to come get him and take him to the ER because they couldn’t get it out. You shouldn’t do shit like that. ‘Cause it’s dangerous.

Today is a review of various dangerous things, because we all need a good reminder. For example, all men need to get annual check-ups for colon and prostate cancer.  I know they are uncomfortable exams.  I don’t give a shit.  Suck it up and save your life.

Along the same lines, all women need to get annual pap smears.  I know they are uncomfortable.  I don’t give a shit.  Suck it up and save your life.

While we are discussing different ways to save your life, let’s add this one: look carefully before you commit to someone.  Predators are not clearly marked.  Things to watch out for (these all refer to ‘he’ because I’m a girl):

1. He won’t introduce you to his family: There’s usually a reason for that. Like his wife or his girlfriend or something like that.
2. He doesn’t like you to spend time your own family: There’s usually a reason for that too, like it’s easier to make you feel like shit about yourself when there’s no one around to tell you differently.  And it’s easier to control you if there’s no one else for you to depend on.
3. He hits on your girlfriends:  What better way to get rid of your girlfriends and make you insecure? If you think you’re going to lose him, you’re easier to manipulate.
4. Relationship problems are always your fault:  For example, you fight all the time because you are unreasonable, demanding and insecure.  He didn’t come home last night because you’ve made home an uncomfortable place by causing fights all the time.
5. He’s rude to your friends and colleagues: Again, easier to control you if he pushes away your support group.
6. There are lots of emergencies and he has to break dates, or he can only call during certain times: That’s usually ’cause of his wife or girlfriend, too.
7. He always borrows money: Seriously, he’s a big boy, he can support himself.
8. Pacing: If he starts out being into you 24/7, it’s not infatuation. It’s smothering.
9. He’s armed: Seriously, if he has access to a weapon, make sure he respects it. Dude get funny around guns- they either know a gun’s power and respect it or they start swaggering around like John Wayne with an itchy trigger finger.
10. He’s rude to the waitress: If he’s rude to the waitress, have no doubt that’s how he’ll be treating you in three months. 

Seriously.  This happens to smart women all the time.  Look for the red flags and listen to your gut.  And don’t stick random shit up your nose.

Everything that honeybees do rocks the free world. And the oppressed world, the developing world, countries in transition, failed or failing states as determined by USAID criteria, and Canada, also referred to as “America’s Hat.”

Recently, I have begun using Burt’s Bees line of facial products. They are made with honey, oranges and royal jelly. Royal jelly is this stuff that worker bees feed to the queen bee, and it the reason the queen lives 40 times longer and is 50 percent bigger than her minions.

That means that my face is going to live 40 times longer than the rest of me and will be 50 percent bigger in no time.

So watch out.

As a side not, there are going to be a lot of spam comments to deal with because of the title of this post. Spam comments suck. They rarely actually show up on the site, but they get e-mailed to me and I have to confirm they are spam. All 50 million of them. Everyday. That’s just another reason it’s really hard to be me.

There is a bit of a conflict here.

Up until this point, sex was the driving inspiration behind every word I tapped onto the screen. There were days when I woke up and thought, “Shit. What the hell am I going to write about today?” Because there are days when a girl isn’t relating everything she thinks to sex. Not consciously, anyway.

So I would think and think and think, and say to myself, “You have your whole commute to come up with something, so think really hard.” Some of my favorite posts came out of the commute brainstorming sessions.

But now I don’t have to write about sex everyday, all the time, or try and relate every single thought I’ve ever had to sex.

There are funny stories I’d like to tell you, like the time we went to a stripper Christmas party and played movie trivia. I’ll probably tell it later.

But right now, there are a million other things to write about, like my penchant for earrings that are three inches long and two inches wide, the little anniversaries of my dad’s chemo stopping, his heart beating irregularly, his fall, and his hospitialization, which are ticking away like a bomb towards the anniversary of his death, like the anxious way I respond to people who appear vulnerable, the way I cry on cue when I see pictures of my niece.

And these are all things that I am arrogant enough to think you want to hear about. Actually, I’m scared that you don’t.

As a side note, I just saw a commercial for Domino’s Oreo Dessert pizza. Jesus. That is some serious shit.

So, I suppose, one should prepare for some very pensive, non-sexual shit that is all about me, the girl, and not me, the girl who writes about sex.

I can do that now that I don’t have an editor.

Although I do think that he reads these posts and thinks, “Shit, Mela, don’t you give these a once-over before you post them?”

Nope.

Bet you wish I’d give you the password, don’t you, Editor dear?

Six weeks after the love of my life died, a friend looked at me and said “Get over it.”

Six months after the love of my life died, a man, who was neither a friend nor a man of quality, looked at me and said, “Get over it.”

He assumed I wasn’t over it because of my lack of sexual activity since my dad’s death. Because clearly, a healthy girl moves on from such a loss and then engages in lots of free love.

Had I been a dog, I would have looked back at both of them, cocked my head to side and perked my ears, because I just didn’t get it.

Because grief, for some reason, is not an emotion we are allowed to feel to its fullest extent. Grief, along with its Debbie-Downer batch of siblings, such as anger, sadness, and everyone’s go-to favorite, depression, always tends to get the short end of the emotional stick.

They are the only emotions that are greeted with some sort cure of solution or fix-it suggestion. Their sunshine-y counterparts, however, are welcomed with open arms, because they have the Healthy Seal of Approval. As if they are more legit.

The Healthy Seal of Approval is the foundation of the “Get Over It” and “Move on” movements that are so en vogue. In their more P.C. form, they are referred to as “The Healing Process.” Don’t get me wrong, I love a good healing process, but I also believe that every emotion should be allowed to run its course- I believe that is the foundation of the healing process.

There is much talk right now about “Moving On.” Now that it’s been a rock solid ten days since the Virginia Tech Massacre, the “Get Over It” and “Move On” movements are doing their very best to stifle all the grief and the fear and the anger, because those are unhealthy emotions. We must find a way to move on.

Everyone stop. Stop all your moving on and just breathe. Find your grief and your fear and shake hands with them. What color are they? What shape are they; do they have a texture? Breathe and feel your grief. When it is ready to subside, when it has found a place to fit inside the puzzle of all your experiences, it will settle in and we will all be able to stand up straight again. Of course we will bend a bit, there will be a different canter to our gaits, because there is more to carry.

For all those kids have experienced, the least we can do is allow them to grieve in their own time. Including the kids themselves, and the faculty, and the families, and everyone else. You are allowed to feel every single last human emotion to its fullest extent. There is no time limit, and there is no judgment on the value of the Debbie Downer emotions. Every emotion is there for a reason. If we didn’t need it, it wouldn’t come to us.

You are allowed to grieve.