I would have updated, but I've had cramps. And really, there's nothing too pleasant to say when you have cramps. I basically spent the last couple of days feeling very Matthew Perry, bumming muscle relaxers and pain pills off of anyone in my life. Whatever gets you through the night.

Sometimes, I get really bad cramps. I'm talking debilitating. I'm talking pain so intense that I see white spots and break out in a sweat. I'm talking dry heaving from the pain. My cramps are so bad, that all other pain is almost nothing, and I have an incredible threshold for pain.

I once broke my foot in three places, chipped my elbow and fractured my wrist in a bike accident, and got back on my bike, rode 10 blocks to my house and went to bed for the night. I waitressed two shifts a day like this for two weeks, wearing an over the counter wrist brace before my Mom decided I should get it checked out. The doctor looked at me in disbelief after reviewing my X-rays and asked me why I waited to see a doctor, "Didn't it hurt?" he asked. I looked at him and said, "Let me tell you something, this pain isn't even 1/4 of the pain I ride every month with cramps. Not even." He turned a bit pale.

I've been to a bunch of doctors. Tests. Tons of tests. Blood, sonograms, invasive exams. Nothing. No medical condition. I tried a million versions of the pill but they just fucked me up worse. There was discussion once of dilating me, tricking my body into thinking that it's delivered a baby, to end the cramps. I've taken a million different prescription painkillers. Some worked, but I refuse to go back to my foul gyno and get refills.

I found a Chinese herb that works but of course I forgot to take it in advance this month and then it was too late. So, while I'm in this condition, I find myself irritable. For instance, it's during times like this, that I remember WHY gentlemen gave up seats to women in the first place. And I am horrified by the generations of men wasting good air in NYC who have no manners and forget to do this.

Here I am, retaining water like a fucking catus, bloated like Elvis at MSG, teetering on high heels, sweating with pain as I clench my jaw to ride through another monster contraction of my uterus - which in case you didn't get the memo - is a majorfuckingorgan in my body and is actually fighting itself to rip a layer of lining from itself and dispel it, therefore causing me to calmly stand in front of you hiding excrutiating pain while about a pint of blood is draining out my body.

Got it?

And no, that's not a bead of sweat rolling down my cheek it's a fucking TEAR, you piece of shit, if you would fucking look up from the USA Today Sports section which must be pretty fucking COMPELLING for you to not see me standing in front of you and accidentally banging into you because I can't keep my balance in these shoes that the male-dominated media convinced me from age 10 that I need to wear to be sexy and succeed and nearly falling into your precious sports scores as I work to control the white hot searing pain that is ripping my insides and feels like a fucking alien is inside the sac known as my uterus and at this very moment this sadistic alien is using it's ET fingers - no nails, just those fleshy, bulbous tips - not to phone home but to pull and stretch my uterus like fucking silly putty until finally, finally, the flesh of the sac rips...slowly tears open and you think I am looking down at your paper you, yuppiecorporateasshole, but I am looking at my stomach to see if the alien then decides to rip through my flesh too and say "hi" to us both. And for a moment I have ridden through the pain and I can breathe. And now I am too tired to hate you. Because I just fought an entire fucking army of redcoats alone and I didn't scream and yell, I just bit down and did it in front of you without complaining. I took a bullet and I'll be taking another in about 4 minutes, but you probably wouldn't know anything about that.

And PS - Your shoes are tragic.

As I fight this war, my body gets beaten like it's been boxed by a heavyweight champion. It's a lot of stress on a functioning body. So everything freaks. And that's when...the bathroom issues kick in. At this point, it's hard to know what to do, because I'm absorbing pain from two very different organs, both of which want to dispel two very different substances and neither wants to wait. They want it OUT. Like a cheating lover, they throw those bags on the street. They wait for no one, no reason.

My organs hate me. I realize this. There's nothing I can do. My heart, powered by my soul, pushes my brain to send a memo to the other organs and let them know the mission statement: Business as Usual. You may have heard that two of us have succeeded and are on a kamikaze mission. This does not affect you. Legs, you must still walk. Eyes, you must still see. Heart - keep pumping. Ears, keep up the hearing and the measurement of equilibrium, we are couting on you more than ever. Each one of you is important and together, you are a brilliant team. Unite!

It's around this time, when I am moving among a crowded subway station during rush hour while brutally fighting two vital internal organs trying to defect from my body, that I decide I am being punished for horrendous actions in a past life. Obviously, I have a major debt to pay. Was I the actual person who nailed Christ to the cross? Perhaps, because this appears be a fair and just punishment for that beleagured soul.

I emerge from the bowels of the subway as my own bowels are mightly convulsing, rejecting the orders to lay down their arms and retreat. The cool air feels good as I walk on cruise control. Some hispanic leech in a doorway sucks wind in through his teeth at me, I guess he thinks that type of mating call is effective for a wild fuck with a stranger, I laugh wondering what he'd do if I stopped and let my bowels win this fight right there in front of his sorry ass.

I barely make it to my friend's apartment on the corner. She's not home yet. But I can't make it to my apartment now. My condition has progressed. I have an acute case of bathroom issues. I sit down in her lobby and work to remain calm. For. The. Next. Twenty. Minutes.

I kid you not.

My friend breezed through the revolving door to her swanky building and saw the look of terror on my face. Fear registered on hers. "What..." No time for that, I shot up, grabbed her arm and swifty led her into the elevator, whispering "Major cramps and the bathroom issues have kicked in." She hit "door close" like a professional Iraqi bomber with strict orders from Hussein. She keyed us in her apartment like James Bond. Click, flick, open. I flew into that bathroom.

I explained it later, after I regained control of the rebellious organs and dry-swallowed a muscle relaxer she had stashed somewhere, about how I must have really fucked up in a past life. "Past life," she scoffed, "you sure haven't been an angel in this one."

Good Point.

So where was I? Oh, that's right - I would have updated, but I've had cramps. And I wouldn't want to bore you all with the details.

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