"I would love to change the world, but they won't give me the source code"- Unknown

Monkey update - we're back to normal, Captain.. all systems working normally. Stupid fucking monkey. It's funny, I got so many amazing comments on my last post. All from women.

Go figure.

Anything interesting going down in your particular emotional hood? No? Yeah, me neither.

I'm just keeping it real. Working for the Man. Keepin' on Keepin' on.

Yep, that's me. Living the dream.

Let's have a talk, friends...

Today I want to talk about PMS/PMT. That sounds like fun, right? Bear with me.. this is just as good for me to type as it is for you to read. Especially if you have a penis. Trust me, I know what I'm talking about.

I suffer from PMT. It's what I'd put on my on Glee t-shirt if I had one. By the way, Glee totally stole that idea from America's Next Top Model. Fo'shiz.

PMT sucks. I know it's not a life-threatening illness. I know it's not a disease. I know there are people in the world who really suffer from said illnesses and diseases. Duh.

For those of you that don't know .. PMT feels like there's a wild monkey riding on your back 24/7 for anywhere from a day to a week. That monkey starts to hit you, constantly, with a plank of wood. Hard. And it's annoying. And it makes you angry. And then because you're angry and annoyed and sad,  it clicks and you realise.. Duh, it's PMT, it's not insanity.

There are studies and books that have suggested that PMT affects the bits of your brain that control anger, hate and fear. The monkey makes sure that every single fear and uncertainty you could possibly think of comes to the surface and are so grossly magnified that it's unreal.

Then you feel humiliated and silly for thinking and worrying and overthinking and overworrying and acting like a bitch.. so you try to desperately function as normal in a world that has no clue that every nerve in your body is on high alert and that things that wouldn't even phase you are suddenly the worst things in the world. The world sees you as you normally are and you look perfectly usual and fine but your brain is .. uh, not handling things so well.

Stupid monkey.

You feel ugly. You feel like you have no friends. Your self esteem sinks lower and lower and lower. You know it'll be better in a few days so you press on and try desperately not to cry, lose your temper or piss off those around you, especially the people around you who love you. These are probably the people in your life who own a penis.

I've said penis twice. I rock.

So you feel like an idiot for letting the stupid fucking monkey control you and everything you think you know or knew or can handle seems really, really foreign and really, really far away. You're alone and there seems to be a screeching monkey doing some uh, really loud screeching in your head.

You feel like a failure.

Then things start to slide back to normal. The monkey disappears and it's like your little Insanity Episode never happened. The good hormones are obviously starting to do their job and your cycle carries on. And you feel better.

You try not to look at the potential path of devastation you've left in your wake. You try really hard not to beat yourself up about it. You try to explain it to those that you might have bowled over with some rather impressive emotional rambling.

You write blog posts about monkeys and penises. And you feel better.

Radio silence from the 2nd of April until today, the 9th of May. I know.. I know.. I rule.

So - what's shakin'?

The boyfriendliest partner and I recently returned from a trip to the Homeland (that's homeland with a capital H as seen on the badge worn on the shoulder of every immgration erm, Homeland Security Officer encountered during our trip. Trust me, I respect their authority. Honest.).

We spent time with my family and took ourselves on a five day road trip through Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, Tennessee and Georgia. 1,070 miles later - we'd stayed in five different motels (most good, one not - it's a bad sign when you check in and then drive directly to the local WalMart to buy your own pillows, surely), had five different motel breakfasts (some good, some great - hello, waffles!) and made it to many, many interesting stops along the way.

The most noteable and honestly, the main goal of our road trip... GRACELAND!  You should note that Graceland totally gets more capital letters in my opinion then Homeland Security people. Just sayin'.

I have been to the birthplace and deathplace of Elvis, friends.

I've seen jumpsuits and graves, gold records and Lisa Marie's swingset. I've touched the statue of Elvis at the Memphis Visitor's Centre (who knew that fucker would be alarmed? Learn from my mistakes, those visitor people will know if you touch it. The entire city of Memphis will hear the alarm as you touch it. You'll have to call out an apology to the world if you touch it. Lesson learned: Don't touch it, okay?)

I introduced partnerman to the joys of dining at the Cracker Barrel.. and Chick-fil-A and Steak and Shake and... and... and... Hmm, let's just say there was a lot of eating (or eatin' as my people would say). Mm.. eatin'.

Sorry, where was I?

Oh yes, so we had a fantastic two and a half weeks with little responsibility, lots of laughs and highjinks that you don't really need to read about here.

Uh, if you're my mother reading this, No, I didn't wreck your bright green gaymobile, steal any road signs, driveway reflectors or any small helpless animals. Okay? Okay.

Now the glamour of our holiday is over and we're back in the Monday to Friday hum-drum. Thankfully, the inevitable return to the five day working week was delayed thanks to the royal people getting their marriage on and various other bank holidays.

I guess you could say I'm rested and ready to grind the daily for a while..

Summer ahoy!

Sixteen Military Wives - The Decemberists

I never speak on trains... Headphones in, music on, eyes down, playing solitaire. That's me. That's everyone. Trust me on this - I spend a lot of time on trains.

Just now I was on the DLR with a very large and very confused group of American teenagers and their even more confused adult chaperones / teachers / whathaveyou.

It's not that hard to get to Bank on the DLR.. you just sort of get on and go to the end of the line. But I suppose it's confusing if it's your first time and you're in charge of a zillion teens and their very bad skin (seriously, didn't they pack fucking pore scrub?! Eew.)

I digress.

One of the women looked at me with that look on her eyes and I could just tell... She was going to talk to me.

Now, I'm happy to help. I'm a helper. Shit, call me Helpy McHelperson if you like. But I was faced with a dilemma.

See ... They were American. And I'm American. Which pretty much means after I give them the information they were after [just stay on this train and you'll get to Bank, I promise] they'd recognise my accent and ask me where I'm from.

From there, we'd go on to details of their holiday and how long I've lived here.. it tends to be a very wicked yet predictable spiral.

That's just too much talking. We do not talk to people on trains. We stare at those who do from a safe distance. We watch people who talk on trains with a wary eye while pretending to play Bejeweled. Talking on trains is wrong. Talking on trains in a loud American accent is even wronglier.

Anyway.. It was a tough split second mental debate.

But I'm glad I got them to Bank safely. Go team America.

So four years ago today, I joined this relatively unknown micro-blogging service that we now all know and (most of us except the people who 'just don't get it') love as Twitter.

According to Wikipedia, "A microblog differs from a traditional blog in that its content is typically smaller in both actual and aggregate file size. Microblogs 'allow users to exchange small elements of content such as short sentences, individual images, or video links.'"

I'm not sure if that's how I best utilise Twitter - but it sure is fun to type the words aggregate file size. Aggregate. Aggregate file size.

Over and over again. Aggregate. See? It's like the word purple. Say it over and over and it suddenly becomes the funniest word and/or sound you've ever heard. Right? Purple aggregate. Aggregated purpleness. Go figure.

Totally random tangent (and hey, who doesn't love one of those?) Remember way back in the way back when WebRings were all the rage? You don't see those very much anymore. I guess those were so Web 1.0, huh? Don't know what I'm talking about? Get the hell out, whippersnapper, you're not old enough to be here. And you're probably not old enough to make me a cocktail and light my cigarette. Useless.

Wait. I'm kidding. Come back. Please?

Sorry - where was I? Oh, yes.. Twitter. So I joined Twitter on the 3rd of March 2007, scooping a relatively enviably short username (@ebeth).  I believe I said about four things and didn't look at it again for a year. As a side note, I just went to myfirsttweet.com to look up my very first ever words on the Twitter. Here was the response: "Sorry, something went wrong. This is what I have recorded as your error: Too Many Tweets."

I didn't add the boldness to TOO MANY TWEETS, they did. Do you think they're trying to make a statement? I mean, I know that as of this very moment, I've sent 55,586 tweets into the vast emptyness that is the Internet... but, seriously? Is that too many? Do I have issues? Does the void really need to know that I had a chicken, lettuce, carrot and cucumber salad for lunch today?

Fuck it, I say, 55,586 isn't enough. [update: I'm now on 55,587]

But, I digress. [and I digest, that salad was tasty]

One day in 2008, I decided to give it another go. You know, bark a mighty hello in less than 140 characters. So I did. And then, while in the cat food aisle at the Sainsbury's, I told the Internet that I had a wedgie courtesy of my Victoria's Secret underpants. Some people tweeted me back, we had a conversation and I was hooked.

And that, my darling electric children of the future, was when I finally 'got' Twitter. All it took was a rather fetching pair of incredibly uncomfortable underpants. Well, that, my MacBook, an iPhone and any other internet capable device that I could find.

I've tweeted in classrooms, parks, airplanes, roller skating rinks, cinemas, office buildings, stores, libraries, churches*... you name it. I've told the Internet more stupid things than I can recall.

I met my partner through Twitter (you will note I'm now calling him partner instead of boyfriend... I'm feeling mature today.) In that respect alone, Twitter changed my life. For the very better.

I adopted a kitten through Twitter and I have a Twitter vet (who is the awesomesauciest vet ever because he doesn't flip out if I text him at 10pm asking silly animal questions). My ex has a Twitter lawyer. I've been drunk with more Twitter people than I probably should've and thrown more parties than I ever thought possible. I'm the co-creator of a little thing we like to call Fuckoffee, #ebethchallenges and an awful lot of whatnot, so on and so forth.

I've made friends and kept them. Pretty sweet for throwing 140 characters at people every now and again.

Oh and... I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that I've said jizz an awful lot more than I ever thought I would over the last four years.

Jizz.

Sweet, sweet jizz. It's what brought us all together, electronic friends. Wedgies, vodka and jizz.

I raise my virtual martini glass to you all.. here's to four years down, lord only knows how many more to come!