Water: Bloody and Otherwise
Today, I used my first tampon, and then rocked a water sport I've never done before. Is this what empowerment feels like?
(We'll find out... my mom's body dissolves tampons, and I'm going to feel very un-empowered if I pull out a string with no tampon on it. Eek!) I've never dealt with this before.
I've tried tampons before, but I could never get them in properly, so I could never wear them, and they hurt when they're not in all the way... :( but a friend is shipping out to the army on tuesday, so there was a party for her, and it involved a lake, a motor boat, and a weird blow-up thing that looks like a boogie board had a baby with an inner tube. And my period started yesterday, and I wanted to go in the water. So there. So I conquered my phobia and tried it. It wasn't nearly as bad as I remember it. Maybe it was just that I was a virgin last time I tried. I dunno. There were instructions, which made me happy, little nervous person that I am. I can't really feel it when it's in, except when I first sit down, or if my hips shift so that they are unparallel. Then it feels WEIRD. Severely. It doesn't smell as bad though. I always smell funny when I wear the same pad all day, and that is greatly minimized with this. I still think I like pads better, but it is nice to have this in my arsenal of things that can happen and be ok.
Note: I just took it out, and removal is WAY weirder-feeling than installation. Also, the tampon smells like meat, and the string smells like ick. I do not think that it would make a good teabag for a vampire, since vampires are supposed to have much better senses of smell than humans. But my body did not eat it, which makes me happy, particularly since I left it in long past the reccommended day dosage of 4 hours, and even longer than the horizontal dosage of 8. I feel very brave for dealing with my icky fluid bits. There are gummy snack rewards being enacted. I love gummy snacks...
So, on to the reason for the tampon. We got to the party considerably after we'd meant to, but that was ok, because it seems like everyone else did too. :P I caught the last docking of the boat, and was (predictably) the first one in the inner tube, raft, thingy. I asked C to go easy on me, since I hadn't ever done this before and C's son O was regaling us all with stories of bloody noses and dislocated limbs on the way out from the dock. And he did, though my knuckles were white around the handles anyway, since I didn't know what I was doing. The sport is aparrently just called inner tubing and is kind of like water skiinng in that the boat/raft/inner tube thing is towed behind a motorboat by a rope and you hang on to the handles on the inner tube and try to stay on while the guy driving the motorboat screws with you. C is very good at screwing with people. The physics are different from water-skiing though (I'm told, I've never been). You're supposed to keep the tips of the skis up out of the water, but I found it most beneficial to push the nose of the raft down towards the water to keep it from going airborne. As it was, I caught quite a bit of air, and was the only above 5 y.o. participant who didn't fall off. There is a flag that you wave that lets other boats know that there is a slow-moving or free-floating person in the water when you're first starting and haven't got speed yet, or when someone falls off. The first time I was in the water, I caught a little air, because C was being "nice" to me and going slow and not trying to shake me off too hard. The second time, everyone was amazed that I stayed on. C was having fun jerking me around, and aparrently gets antsy if his inner tuber does not fall off after a while. So, he put me through choppy water, which bucks and bobbles you up and down and tries to smack your face into the inner tube below you (I rode lying down on my belly) and when that didn't throw me, he went into a corkscrew that throws you off the wake. Then, while you're trying to get back on, you have to deal with the waves that the side of the wake make, which throw you up and try to turn you over. At this point, C was really trying to throw me off. I saw O start to stand up several times to raise the flag when he saw his dad make some of the moves he did, only to sit back down when the spray settled and I was still onboard. I actually got like 3 feet of air (no exaggeration) at one point, which everyone said was the most air they'd ever seen gotten without the 'tuber falling off.
I feel pretty hardcore. :P
(We'll find out... my mom's body dissolves tampons, and I'm going to feel very un-empowered if I pull out a string with no tampon on it. Eek!) I've never dealt with this before.
I've tried tampons before, but I could never get them in properly, so I could never wear them, and they hurt when they're not in all the way... :( but a friend is shipping out to the army on tuesday, so there was a party for her, and it involved a lake, a motor boat, and a weird blow-up thing that looks like a boogie board had a baby with an inner tube. And my period started yesterday, and I wanted to go in the water. So there. So I conquered my phobia and tried it. It wasn't nearly as bad as I remember it. Maybe it was just that I was a virgin last time I tried. I dunno. There were instructions, which made me happy, little nervous person that I am. I can't really feel it when it's in, except when I first sit down, or if my hips shift so that they are unparallel. Then it feels WEIRD. Severely. It doesn't smell as bad though. I always smell funny when I wear the same pad all day, and that is greatly minimized with this. I still think I like pads better, but it is nice to have this in my arsenal of things that can happen and be ok.
Note: I just took it out, and removal is WAY weirder-feeling than installation. Also, the tampon smells like meat, and the string smells like ick. I do not think that it would make a good teabag for a vampire, since vampires are supposed to have much better senses of smell than humans. But my body did not eat it, which makes me happy, particularly since I left it in long past the reccommended day dosage of 4 hours, and even longer than the horizontal dosage of 8. I feel very brave for dealing with my icky fluid bits. There are gummy snack rewards being enacted. I love gummy snacks...
So, on to the reason for the tampon. We got to the party considerably after we'd meant to, but that was ok, because it seems like everyone else did too. :P I caught the last docking of the boat, and was (predictably) the first one in the inner tube, raft, thingy. I asked C to go easy on me, since I hadn't ever done this before and C's son O was regaling us all with stories of bloody noses and dislocated limbs on the way out from the dock. And he did, though my knuckles were white around the handles anyway, since I didn't know what I was doing. The sport is aparrently just called inner tubing and is kind of like water skiinng in that the boat/raft/inner tube thing is towed behind a motorboat by a rope and you hang on to the handles on the inner tube and try to stay on while the guy driving the motorboat screws with you. C is very good at screwing with people. The physics are different from water-skiing though (I'm told, I've never been). You're supposed to keep the tips of the skis up out of the water, but I found it most beneficial to push the nose of the raft down towards the water to keep it from going airborne. As it was, I caught quite a bit of air, and was the only above 5 y.o. participant who didn't fall off. There is a flag that you wave that lets other boats know that there is a slow-moving or free-floating person in the water when you're first starting and haven't got speed yet, or when someone falls off. The first time I was in the water, I caught a little air, because C was being "nice" to me and going slow and not trying to shake me off too hard. The second time, everyone was amazed that I stayed on. C was having fun jerking me around, and aparrently gets antsy if his inner tuber does not fall off after a while. So, he put me through choppy water, which bucks and bobbles you up and down and tries to smack your face into the inner tube below you (I rode lying down on my belly) and when that didn't throw me, he went into a corkscrew that throws you off the wake. Then, while you're trying to get back on, you have to deal with the waves that the side of the wake make, which throw you up and try to turn you over. At this point, C was really trying to throw me off. I saw O start to stand up several times to raise the flag when he saw his dad make some of the moves he did, only to sit back down when the spray settled and I was still onboard. I actually got like 3 feet of air (no exaggeration) at one point, which everyone said was the most air they'd ever seen gotten without the 'tuber falling off.
I feel pretty hardcore. :P