Like many establishments in Bonaire, the Lion’s Den restaurant at Buddy Dive is open to the elements. Obviously, Roy and I noted, they don’t get much rain there. We staggered into the breakfast section, like many of our fellow travelers, and grabbed sustenance from the bins of bread products, then the chilled section of yogurt, fruit, cheese, cold cuts… Then we reached tea and coffee, juices, water, all offered in extremely small mugs and glasses. Finally, the eggs, bacon, sausage, French toast, and pancakes rounded out the pre-made items, snug in their chafing dishes. The omelet and waffle station at the end of the buffet, ably operated by Magda, was something we would try later in the week. But, on negligible sleep, we were not inclined to wait, or to make decisions about what would go into an omelet.
Coffee was good. I was convinced I would spend most of the afternoon sleeping, so I was trying to avoid tanking up on coffee. I figured a relaxing breakfast, followed by the resort orientation, would lead nicely to a nap. Bananas in Bonaire were inordinately good. Unfortunately, the only time we had them offered was that Saturday. The papaya with yogurt was also good. A side note on the yogurt: Bonaire is not the place to get fresh milk products. There are no cows on or near the island, so the most common type of milk substance other than powdered milk was drinkable yogurt, preserved so it could be stored and shipped at room temperature. The resulting product is a good deal tangier than the sweet stuff to which the American tongue has become accustomed. However, I thought it was nice. And there was a passion fruit peach flavor… yummy.
During breakfast, I got my first real taste of Bonaire Fauna (other than the type that had enjoyed my company earlier, in a feeding on kind of way). The seagulls speak a different language than the ones I’m used to from all over the States. These lovelies had black heads and white bodies and a much less unpleasant call. They also were not nearly as ragged and dirty as North American gulls. The pigeons, mainly brownish, were your typical winged rats. The doves, nicer-sounding pigeons, were dark brown, a contrast to the pale grey-brown ones in Austin whose calls fill the morning air and that commit hari-kari against our windows with distressing frequency. The resort forbade feeding the birds, no surprise, but they were all quite persistent. It was nice watching them over the ocean as we relaxed a bit.
After food, we made our way back across the resort to the front desk area, where we were told our room was ready. So we grabbed our bags and trundled back to Room 702 for an initial unpack, most of which entailed putting the expensive stuff into the room safe. By 8:45, it was time to head up to the cabana for our orientation.
One incredibly nifty thing about Buddy Dive resort is that it has its own dock for diving. We walked along that dock with the rest of our group and the dive master (who has black kitties tattooed on his calves, an endearing scarification), and I saw hundreds of fish swimming below the surface. While hearing about checking out tanks, getting weights and learning where to rinse and hang gear, I was thinking maybe I could do a snorkel… after a nap. We went to the dive shop and paid for our Bonaire marine park admittance, which everyone using the island must do before entering the water. We browsed through some fish books while waiting to give over our $25 each for the privilege to dive. And I thought, “Maybe one dive later… after a nap…”
So, of course, after unpacking some more and resting a bit, no nap, we decided we would do just one dive. I followed Roy, getting gear ready to lug downstairs to the dock area. I moved through my murky mind as though it was Jell-O. I wasn’t entirely there, but I was going somewhere interesting. (And, all the heavy stuff was already down at the dock, so I wouldn’t do too much damage if I fell down the staircase, especially if I carried my cushy wetsuit in front of me…)
The preparation for diving is something with which I was familiar. Last summer we spent a decent amount of time logging dives in Lake Travis, near Austin. Check enriched air in tank, soak buoyancy control device (BCD), pull BCD over the tank, secure BCD, attach regs to tank and BCD and turn on air, make sure air is flowing through the reg, add weight to BCD, turn tank et al on the side. Then put hood on, put wetsuit on (wiggle, wiggle, curse, tug), put on Tank/BCD combo (groan under the weight), put on computer, grab mask, snorkel and fins and head for the water. Simple!
Once in the water, I was used to communicating with my buddy (Roy, always) when we’d go underwater, and then spending the dive trying not to lose Roy in the murky water of Lake Travis. At the surface of the Caribbean Ocean, we said down, and thereafter diving became something entirely different from my previous experience.
I could see. I could see for long distances. And I could see more living things in one glance than I believe I had ever seen underwater before. Go get a Bonaire diving guide to learn what met our eyes… or check out http://ahpook.smugmug.com/ for vacation snaps. I know when we first submerged, I saw parrotfish, urchins, nursefish, and snappers. We swam out several minutes across the beautiful white sand. As we approached the end of the mooring rope that led seaward from the dock, we started to see more coral. At the end of the rope, there was even more coral. And there was even more as the ocean floor sloped down. At 30 feet below the surface, more breeds of coral flourished than I could count on my fingers. And in that coral, and above, and within, and around it there swam, floated, crawled, mated, tussled, and amazed thousands of fish. My dive computer yelled at me for breathing too fast as I gasped in awe, completely awake, at the wonderland through which I moved.
The gentle current swayed the few soft corals and numerous anemones that clung to the hard corals’ rocky surfaces. Cobalt blue tangs swam through lavender tube sponges. Tiny, tri-colored wrasse chased coral-chomping parrotfish as moray eels glowered inside crevasses in the brain coral, occasionally lunging forward, toothy mouths opening. Shiny royal blue chromis schooled, while their brown cousins swam up to the surface, then down again, then up… Angelfish sailed like underwater boats. White and yellow goatfish hovered at the ocean floor, stirring up sand and food with their Fu Manchu whiskers. We didn’t really know what most of the creatures we were seeing at that point were. We just kept pointing, eyes wide behind our masks, at every amazing sight. And every sight was amazing.
At the end of the snorkel-turned-short-dive, which lasted the better part of an hour, we emerged back at the Buddy Dock, thunderstruck. And ready to go again.
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
Friday, June 22, 2007
Bonaire, Part the First
Being the first installment in who knows how many of the recent trip to Diving Disneyland...
Wherever you go…. there you are.
This platitude made a lot of sense while traveling.
Bonaire was wonderful. I mean, wonderful in a way that was somewhere completely else, where, beneficent heavens be praised, hardly a thought of work went through my tired little mind. Where flamingos and donkey roamed free on land, salt made snowy mounds just yards from the surf, and spiky succulents’ predominance on land belied the lush world just past the glimmering surface of the sea, I explored and rejoiced and moved in wonderment for a too-short week.
Spotted Eagle Ray, Hidden Beach, Bonaire (Photo copyright 2007, Roy Moore)
But I could not escape the fact that I brought myself along. What do I mean by that? Well, the same neuroses that plague me and have made me damn near apoplectic in the Current Job were right along waiting to come out in the water. I had to be a grand and glorious diver… I had to… see the good stuff. I had to… have fun? Relax? Get my money’s worth? For about three days I was pursuing my vacation. And making myself a bit of a wreck.
Don’t get me wrong. There are much worse things to be doing when trying to suss out what a vacation might be than diving three to four times a day in a coral playground.
And about that playground. Well, the only diving experience I’d had until 2 weeks ago tomorrow was Lake Travis, Austin Texas. While a lovely cool place to be in the Texas heat, there isn’t a lot to see besides algae, catfish, carp, drum, murky rocks, and the occasional sunken boat or bathtub. Occasionally you can see your dive buddy, but it’s not a good idea to count on that too much. While the lake is fine for a local trip, and I learned how to dive there well enough, I was in no way prepared for the effect my first Caribbean dive would have on my extremely sleep-deprived psyche. But first, let me explain how we got that tired.
We had been traveling since about 4:45 p.m. Friday, when K drove Roy and me to the Austin airport. Our 7:15 flight got to Houston at 8:30, after which we waited for the nonstop to Bonaire, which left at 11:50. We touched down in Bonaire, as scheduled, at 5:15 in the morning, Saturday. I tried sleeping on the flight, and I did get some shut-eye. But I’m not sure whether sleeping was better than just trying to read would have been.
Airplane seats are bearable while sitting, awake and rested, for about 3 hours. New York to San Francisco, fine. I can do that. Anything over that, and my back starts to get cranky, not to mention my legs and hip joints. I think perhaps I’m getting old. Anyhow, when one sleeps in one of those airplane seats, one’s spine goes right out of alignment. You think a crick in your neck from the nice bed in your own bedroom is bad? Try the Continental Airlines Iron Maiden Seats. Unmedicated, you might sleep 15-30 minutes without waking up from some form or another of discomfort. For 5 hours, it was not exactly restful. But we landed! In Bonaire!
This was my first time, ever, in the tropics. My first time on an island that was not Angel Island or Manhattan. My first actual non work, non-family vacation not associated with some form of mental anguish (we’re not counting the job) in more than five years. And it was my first opportunity to use my passport since I was nine years old. I was, understandably, beside myself. We exited the plane down the stairs, across the tarmac and through customs, hoping we’d meet our luggage before we left the airport. we had a—luxurious—amount of time to ponder the surroundings before we would have our joyous bag reunion.
Bonaire’s Flamingo Airport is, well, pink. And the luggage claim area (one carousel) is open to the sky, the elements—and the mosquitoes. Watching the sun appear, I remembered the warnings about hungry bugs waiting for the weekly deliveries of fresh American meat. In the roseate glow of Bonaire’s airport in/ex-terior, as the sun rose on a typical, 90-degree morning, I had my first taste of island cuisine. Or, rather, I was my first island cuisineurs’ taste. After our first experience of island time, when we got our baggage about an hour after getting into the country, I had amassed several impressive welcome welts on my shoulders and ankles. The bug spray, with lovely Deet flavor, was the first item retrieved from the finally-appearing bags.
A mere hour after getting the bags, we left the airport on the school bus that took us to Buddy Dive resort, just north of Kralendijk, the main town on the island. On the trip, for which Roy and I were (appropriately, both dressed in our skull-covered finest) in the back seat, we were treated to a barely audible resort primer from the purple-shirted Buddy Dive guide at the front.
Thirty minutes after pulling up to the resort, we were told our room might be ready in an hour, so we should head to the Lion’s Head and have breakfast. I was so tired by that point that it hurt to try to think of an excuse not to go. So, Roy and I left the silly, stinking drunk fellow traveler, the one who must have been pickled from the time he got on the plane in Houston, who grabbed Heinekens the moment he got off the plane and who was still drinking when we got to the resort. And we negotiated our way to the restaurant.
Wherever you go…. there you are.
This platitude made a lot of sense while traveling.
Bonaire was wonderful. I mean, wonderful in a way that was somewhere completely else, where, beneficent heavens be praised, hardly a thought of work went through my tired little mind. Where flamingos and donkey roamed free on land, salt made snowy mounds just yards from the surf, and spiky succulents’ predominance on land belied the lush world just past the glimmering surface of the sea, I explored and rejoiced and moved in wonderment for a too-short week.
Spotted Eagle Ray, Hidden Beach, Bonaire (Photo copyright 2007, Roy Moore)But I could not escape the fact that I brought myself along. What do I mean by that? Well, the same neuroses that plague me and have made me damn near apoplectic in the Current Job were right along waiting to come out in the water. I had to be a grand and glorious diver… I had to… see the good stuff. I had to… have fun? Relax? Get my money’s worth? For about three days I was pursuing my vacation. And making myself a bit of a wreck.
Don’t get me wrong. There are much worse things to be doing when trying to suss out what a vacation might be than diving three to four times a day in a coral playground.
And about that playground. Well, the only diving experience I’d had until 2 weeks ago tomorrow was Lake Travis, Austin Texas. While a lovely cool place to be in the Texas heat, there isn’t a lot to see besides algae, catfish, carp, drum, murky rocks, and the occasional sunken boat or bathtub. Occasionally you can see your dive buddy, but it’s not a good idea to count on that too much. While the lake is fine for a local trip, and I learned how to dive there well enough, I was in no way prepared for the effect my first Caribbean dive would have on my extremely sleep-deprived psyche. But first, let me explain how we got that tired.
We had been traveling since about 4:45 p.m. Friday, when K drove Roy and me to the Austin airport. Our 7:15 flight got to Houston at 8:30, after which we waited for the nonstop to Bonaire, which left at 11:50. We touched down in Bonaire, as scheduled, at 5:15 in the morning, Saturday. I tried sleeping on the flight, and I did get some shut-eye. But I’m not sure whether sleeping was better than just trying to read would have been.
Airplane seats are bearable while sitting, awake and rested, for about 3 hours. New York to San Francisco, fine. I can do that. Anything over that, and my back starts to get cranky, not to mention my legs and hip joints. I think perhaps I’m getting old. Anyhow, when one sleeps in one of those airplane seats, one’s spine goes right out of alignment. You think a crick in your neck from the nice bed in your own bedroom is bad? Try the Continental Airlines Iron Maiden Seats. Unmedicated, you might sleep 15-30 minutes without waking up from some form or another of discomfort. For 5 hours, it was not exactly restful. But we landed! In Bonaire!
This was my first time, ever, in the tropics. My first time on an island that was not Angel Island or Manhattan. My first actual non work, non-family vacation not associated with some form of mental anguish (we’re not counting the job) in more than five years. And it was my first opportunity to use my passport since I was nine years old. I was, understandably, beside myself. We exited the plane down the stairs, across the tarmac and through customs, hoping we’d meet our luggage before we left the airport. we had a—luxurious—amount of time to ponder the surroundings before we would have our joyous bag reunion.
Bonaire’s Flamingo Airport is, well, pink. And the luggage claim area (one carousel) is open to the sky, the elements—and the mosquitoes. Watching the sun appear, I remembered the warnings about hungry bugs waiting for the weekly deliveries of fresh American meat. In the roseate glow of Bonaire’s airport in/ex-terior, as the sun rose on a typical, 90-degree morning, I had my first taste of island cuisine. Or, rather, I was my first island cuisineurs’ taste. After our first experience of island time, when we got our baggage about an hour after getting into the country, I had amassed several impressive welcome welts on my shoulders and ankles. The bug spray, with lovely Deet flavor, was the first item retrieved from the finally-appearing bags.
A mere hour after getting the bags, we left the airport on the school bus that took us to Buddy Dive resort, just north of Kralendijk, the main town on the island. On the trip, for which Roy and I were (appropriately, both dressed in our skull-covered finest) in the back seat, we were treated to a barely audible resort primer from the purple-shirted Buddy Dive guide at the front.
Thirty minutes after pulling up to the resort, we were told our room might be ready in an hour, so we should head to the Lion’s Head and have breakfast. I was so tired by that point that it hurt to try to think of an excuse not to go. So, Roy and I left the silly, stinking drunk fellow traveler, the one who must have been pickled from the time he got on the plane in Houston, who grabbed Heinekens the moment he got off the plane and who was still drinking when we got to the resort. And we negotiated our way to the restaurant.
Friday, June 1, 2007
The Briny Deep
It's official: my scuba gear works, and Roy's works, and so we should make it through our 6 days of diving in Bonaire without equipment malfunction. This is my first non-family vacation completely work-free since 2004. And it's the longest vacation I've had in maybe forever. Well, 6 months in Europe when I was 9 years old was longer, but...
My passport is shiny new, my sarongs are being shipped (had to get the black/white skull one and the tie-dyed star). The digital camera arrived today, just a few days after its waterproof casing.
I don't think it's sunk in entirely that in a week we'll be somewhere so completely other than I've ever experienced. My mind is occupied with the intractable work situation, getting the pets ready for petsitters, thinking about what to pack... I suppose when I'm on the plane I'll be closer to feeling really GONE. However, not until I'm actually there, with the ocean a precious playground before me, do I believe I will have the true feeling of being away.
I know that iguanas are to Bonaire what squirrels are to Austin (and most other places in the United States). I know they eat a lot of goat, buying milk is not recommended, you can pay in dollars and receive guilders in change. I've read about the shore diving, I hear Magda will make custom omelets at the Buddy Dive resort, and it's widely known that you do not lock your truck, and you should leave your windows down.
But I have no idea what being away feels like. I'll let you know what it is like when I do, if I decide to come back.
My passport is shiny new, my sarongs are being shipped (had to get the black/white skull one and the tie-dyed star). The digital camera arrived today, just a few days after its waterproof casing.
I don't think it's sunk in entirely that in a week we'll be somewhere so completely other than I've ever experienced. My mind is occupied with the intractable work situation, getting the pets ready for petsitters, thinking about what to pack... I suppose when I'm on the plane I'll be closer to feeling really GONE. However, not until I'm actually there, with the ocean a precious playground before me, do I believe I will have the true feeling of being away.
I know that iguanas are to Bonaire what squirrels are to Austin (and most other places in the United States). I know they eat a lot of goat, buying milk is not recommended, you can pay in dollars and receive guilders in change. I've read about the shore diving, I hear Magda will make custom omelets at the Buddy Dive resort, and it's widely known that you do not lock your truck, and you should leave your windows down.
But I have no idea what being away feels like. I'll let you know what it is like when I do, if I decide to come back.
Thursday, May 24, 2007
Thursday
A haiku for the morning:
Cockroach in death throes...
Mildew perfumes its passing.
Office loo mocks me.
Only 4 hours left until the chaos resolves into normal idiocy. That's all I can manage un-caffeinated.
Cockroach in death throes...
Mildew perfumes its passing.
Office loo mocks me.
Only 4 hours left until the chaos resolves into normal idiocy. That's all I can manage un-caffeinated.
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
I enjoy being a girl
Sometimes I am struck by inspiration. It feels nice, like a friendly chuck on the chin. Other moments come on like the gentle caress... of a Mack truck hitting a subcompact car. This week, whacked by one of the latter, I decided to start... a BLOG. (I do accept warm welcomes to the 21st century.)
So, why the show tune title?
There are times, often separated by about 21-25 days, when being a female is not my favorite thing in the world. It hurts, it's inconvenient, and it's messy. And the world certainly doesn't look as lovely from the angle of doubled over in pain. But there's no escaping the warm, chromosomal fact of my distinct double x-es. Outside of those several days out of the year, many times it's an awful lot of fun to be a female.
The other day my boyfriend thought he'd let me know of an option out there for women, like me, who find the glow of feminity dims considerably several days out of the month. He's understandably concerned when my vocabulary narrows to moans and mumbled requests for Advil or a mallet strike to the head.
So, he sent me a link to an article in the UK publication The Telegraph about a one-pill solution to all your menstrual ills. For about 30 seconds of reading, it seemed like a good idea. No more periods, ever. How clean! How convenient! Think of the money I could spend on things other than paper and cotton disposables!
Then I was overcome with a visceral disgust. I don't think it was all from the very popular Joss Whedon post on the murder of Dua Kalil. But I'm sure his rant of brililance brought my feelings of feminine outrage to the fore, not to mention visuals of blood.
I don't think Western Medicine has come up with a good solution in the no-period pill. On longer reflection, it seems extremely misogynistic to me... ill-informed, at least. I even question the health of being on the pill, actually. But there is a certain degree of body rhythm syncopation I'm willing to engineer in order to choose when and if I reproduce.
But menstruating is not a disease that needs to be cured. Many people still view an essential part of being female as inconvenient or shameful, even. So why not get rid of it, without any long-term studies of the long-term physical ramifications. I may complain about it and not feel well when it's going on, but I'd rather have a natural process occur than... not.
Bleah.
What if there was a pill that made men not produce Precious Bodily Fluids, even if they could still "arrive" coitally... you think that would go over well? Nope. Even though it's not everyone's favorite substance, stains like crazy, and no one wants the "wet spot", getting rid of it isn't anything that has crossed anyone's mind, at least not to the point where it's been addressed medically. Men get medicine to enhance their masculinity, making it last longer (to the tune of priapism).
Yes, there is pain associated with menstruation. But we live through it, and childbirth, too. People are so discomfort-adverse, they use that aversion as an excuse to make this kind of "medicine." The avoidance of discomfort, mental and physical, is a different discussion altogether, and Pema Chodron has done it far more eloquently than I can, through her wonderful books and essays. But Western medicine addresses our aversion to discomfort as a marketing opportunity. Little pains? Don't feel them any more... even if the underlying cause isn't addressed in the slightest by that pill. Pop a pill, get a woodie. Pop a pill, lose weight. Pop a pill, relieve your chronic pain. Pop a pill... defeminize yourself.
Now, I've had many opportunities to benefit from Western medicine. It has been a huge boon to many people I've known. I'm not ignorant enough to write it off, because it does extend and enhance human life (to quote the Bristol-Myers Squibb statement). However, in some cases it ignores the bigger picture, treating the symptom rather than the underlying cause. And then, there are the vanity drugs.
Vanity drugs are those treatments (I hesitate to call them medicines) that play into our insecurities, laziness and fears. We don't need them. Yes, the morbidly obese man needs the pill to lose weight in some cases, but many who would benefit from a lifestyle change and are unwilling to give up their Snickers bars and sedentary lifestyles ask for that pill. I would argue that the no-period pill is a vanity treatment, even more so than the weight-loss pill. I wager that the number of women whose health is threatened by menstruation is vanishingly small. For them, yes, such a pill would be a lifesaver. But for the majority of us, for whom the period is a monthly inconvenience, a pain to deal with on vacation, it is a natural process. We've lived with it as long as we have existed. It tells those of us who don't want children that we're not pregnant. It can let us know when we're ill, if it's not regular.
And it is part of what makes us so different from men. And that seems to be a threat, and has been so historically. The curse, it has been called. How obscene is it that the process that makes us able to bring forth life is branded so? From the days that menstruating females were banished from society for the duration of their periods, and before, it has been patently obvious that our natural capability and difference has threatened men. Today we have devised myriad means of masking the curse. It's no longer taboo in America to talk about menstruation, but we still refer to women who are being difficult as "on the rag." Femininity is still shameful, despite our openness about it. We can bleed when we are cut, but the regular bleeding of our cycles is a threat.
So now we're offered a way to erase this most potent sign of our fertile nature. It might not be a conscious, studied attempt by the masculine elite of the pharmaceutical industry to eliminate the feminine mystique. But the no-period pill only exists because enough people believe menstruating is bad. The pill seems to be an attempted annihilation of scary femininity. It's a small, light pebble, like the heavier stones hurled at poor Dua Kalil. Unlike Dua, though, we don't bleed.
We don't bleed.
So, why the show tune title?
There are times, often separated by about 21-25 days, when being a female is not my favorite thing in the world. It hurts, it's inconvenient, and it's messy. And the world certainly doesn't look as lovely from the angle of doubled over in pain. But there's no escaping the warm, chromosomal fact of my distinct double x-es. Outside of those several days out of the year, many times it's an awful lot of fun to be a female.
The other day my boyfriend thought he'd let me know of an option out there for women, like me, who find the glow of feminity dims considerably several days out of the month. He's understandably concerned when my vocabulary narrows to moans and mumbled requests for Advil or a mallet strike to the head.
So, he sent me a link to an article in the UK publication The Telegraph about a one-pill solution to all your menstrual ills. For about 30 seconds of reading, it seemed like a good idea. No more periods, ever. How clean! How convenient! Think of the money I could spend on things other than paper and cotton disposables!
Then I was overcome with a visceral disgust. I don't think it was all from the very popular Joss Whedon post on the murder of Dua Kalil. But I'm sure his rant of brililance brought my feelings of feminine outrage to the fore, not to mention visuals of blood.
I don't think Western Medicine has come up with a good solution in the no-period pill. On longer reflection, it seems extremely misogynistic to me... ill-informed, at least. I even question the health of being on the pill, actually. But there is a certain degree of body rhythm syncopation I'm willing to engineer in order to choose when and if I reproduce.
But menstruating is not a disease that needs to be cured. Many people still view an essential part of being female as inconvenient or shameful, even. So why not get rid of it, without any long-term studies of the long-term physical ramifications. I may complain about it and not feel well when it's going on, but I'd rather have a natural process occur than... not.
Bleah.
What if there was a pill that made men not produce Precious Bodily Fluids, even if they could still "arrive" coitally... you think that would go over well? Nope. Even though it's not everyone's favorite substance, stains like crazy, and no one wants the "wet spot", getting rid of it isn't anything that has crossed anyone's mind, at least not to the point where it's been addressed medically. Men get medicine to enhance their masculinity, making it last longer (to the tune of priapism).
Yes, there is pain associated with menstruation. But we live through it, and childbirth, too. People are so discomfort-adverse, they use that aversion as an excuse to make this kind of "medicine." The avoidance of discomfort, mental and physical, is a different discussion altogether, and Pema Chodron has done it far more eloquently than I can, through her wonderful books and essays. But Western medicine addresses our aversion to discomfort as a marketing opportunity. Little pains? Don't feel them any more... even if the underlying cause isn't addressed in the slightest by that pill. Pop a pill, get a woodie. Pop a pill, lose weight. Pop a pill, relieve your chronic pain. Pop a pill... defeminize yourself.
Now, I've had many opportunities to benefit from Western medicine. It has been a huge boon to many people I've known. I'm not ignorant enough to write it off, because it does extend and enhance human life (to quote the Bristol-Myers Squibb statement). However, in some cases it ignores the bigger picture, treating the symptom rather than the underlying cause. And then, there are the vanity drugs.
Vanity drugs are those treatments (I hesitate to call them medicines) that play into our insecurities, laziness and fears. We don't need them. Yes, the morbidly obese man needs the pill to lose weight in some cases, but many who would benefit from a lifestyle change and are unwilling to give up their Snickers bars and sedentary lifestyles ask for that pill. I would argue that the no-period pill is a vanity treatment, even more so than the weight-loss pill. I wager that the number of women whose health is threatened by menstruation is vanishingly small. For them, yes, such a pill would be a lifesaver. But for the majority of us, for whom the period is a monthly inconvenience, a pain to deal with on vacation, it is a natural process. We've lived with it as long as we have existed. It tells those of us who don't want children that we're not pregnant. It can let us know when we're ill, if it's not regular.
And it is part of what makes us so different from men. And that seems to be a threat, and has been so historically. The curse, it has been called. How obscene is it that the process that makes us able to bring forth life is branded so? From the days that menstruating females were banished from society for the duration of their periods, and before, it has been patently obvious that our natural capability and difference has threatened men. Today we have devised myriad means of masking the curse. It's no longer taboo in America to talk about menstruation, but we still refer to women who are being difficult as "on the rag." Femininity is still shameful, despite our openness about it. We can bleed when we are cut, but the regular bleeding of our cycles is a threat.
So now we're offered a way to erase this most potent sign of our fertile nature. It might not be a conscious, studied attempt by the masculine elite of the pharmaceutical industry to eliminate the feminine mystique. But the no-period pill only exists because enough people believe menstruating is bad. The pill seems to be an attempted annihilation of scary femininity. It's a small, light pebble, like the heavier stones hurled at poor Dua Kalil. Unlike Dua, though, we don't bleed.
We don't bleed.
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