I would pull a little wooden table over my lap and line it with sheets of computer paper. Then I would get out my art case, which was really just a toolbox full of various markers, pastels and colored pencils my parents bought for me. We weren't a rich family, but I always had art supplies. My mother took pictures of everything I drew or painted and put them into an album. She loved to tell people about their first Parent night at my Preschool. The teachers had selected the three dozen or so best drawings to tack on the display wall, and they didn't realize until afterwards that almost all of them were mine; my trees, suns, princesses, wild beasts and flowers. My mother loved to brag.

One Monday night, while drawing whatever happy and fanciful thing it was that moved me at the moment, my father came in and turned the television to the Bills game. He then went into the kitchen to pop some popcorn for the game, and I sat at my table, drew and listened to the program that was finishing up, a special report about this strange thing called "depression."

I had never heard of it before, and it seemed silly and stupid, as all adult things seemed. The craggy man they interviewed said he had been "depressed" for ten years, which apparently meant he didn't feel like leaving the house, or going to parties and socializing with friends. Well, that's stupid. Who doesn't like going to parties? Who doesn't like playing with their friends?

Man on TV: "Some days I can't get out of bed."

He seemed weak and self-indulgent. I didn't understand "depression."

Well if you want to get out of bed you just get out of it. This is fricken stupid. And with that, I changed the channel to Nickelodeon so that I could catch the last half of an Inspector Gadget episode before the game started. That was the last I heard of "depression"...until I was diagnosed with it.

My Exploding Heads

I was in the eighth grade when I started to feel "off." I didn't want to go outside. I didn't call my friends, I just replaced them with my pusher man, Chester Cheetah, because he and I could sit in the dark together and not be bothered about our strange orange fingers. My artwork changed. The fanciful drawings of trees, suns, princesses, wild beasts and flowers were replaced by dark scribblings of ominous figures, the lines angular and harsh. I would draw my face obscured by shadow, the top of my skull a hole spewing a jet stream of angry shit, purple, black, red and gray. I would show them to my mother and she would say as sweetly as was possible, "Oh... that's nice," but she didn't take pictures of my art any more.

Teachers called my parents about my "behavioral problems," but my grades were good, so no one seemed to care. All I wanted was to be left alone. And so, the summer between middle school and high school, I was triumphantly alone. I sat in front of the television and festered, holes wearing in the elbows of the pink cardigan my mother picked out for me.

High school was Pavlovian. Go to class, sleep, bell rings, move...Go to class, sleep, bell rings, move...I didn't speak in class, and teachers barely knew my name. This was fine by me. And though I didn't do my homework, didn't study for tests, and didn't listen in class (how could I do these things when I was always so tired?) I still managed to get by. Looking back, I was frightfully ill, but no one knew because my grades never dipped. And my illness wasn't perceived as the chemical imbalance it was. It was perceived as a total aberrance in character. I was not the girl I was supposed to be, and my mother forcing me into a pink cardigan didn't change that.

In my senior year, all the most excellent young girls in my class tried out for the "Junior Miss" scholarship extravaganza, a trite beauty pageant in which cardigan-wearing girls from all over the county jumped through hoops to win a couple hundred dollars in scholarship money. I wanted nothing to do with this. It was the antithesis of the few things I actually liked about myself. And though I already had college covered, having earned a big scholarship on the merit of my artwork--my exploding heads and whatnot--my mother still expected me to try out. But I wasn't going to parade around in heels to Dionne Warwick songs for a couple hundred more dollars, not when I had already worked so hard to earn tens of thousands of them. I refused to try out.

My mother screamed and cried, but I refused. And I am reminded of how I refused on every holiday, every trip to my hometown, and every May when some excellent senior girl wins a couple hundred measly dollars.

The Crusade Begins

Last Sunday night at some late hour, Maxie and I decided to take a walk. I wasn't sure what time it was, but I knew it was one of those hours that I enjoy all to myself. In the wee hours, I don't have to mingle with those cardigan girls, or any other responsible types of people. They're in bed, resting for their busy and important day, dreaming of the kinds of things those normal types dream of - 401K's, meeting Mr. or Mrs. Right, or getting a Home Equity Line of Credit (whatever the hell that is).

Maxie and I were strolling down Ashland Avenue. It was an unusually steamy evening for May in Chicago, so much so that Maxie's tongue hung from the side of her snout as we walked, her little rib cage poking left and right behind her butt and floppy tail. I had recently taken her to Petco for a summer "fur cut," which terrified her. Every time the congenial lady turned the clippers on, Maxie's bones liquefied and she slumped into a pile of goo on the table. But now that her fur was short, she was much cooler, and thus happier.

We were on our Sunday night walk when it occurred to me that I had been crying quite a bit. Too much, really. Also, the things I had been crying about were pretty inane. I made a list in my head:

-Whether or not the 2012 Olympics would be held in New York City
-The faltering career of last year's American Idol reject Diana DiGarmo
-The state of my wardrobe
-Stevie Wonder's blindness

I tallied the amount of coffee I had consumed that day, two pots, plus the cup in my hand. It seemed very odd to me that a person would drink two pots of coffee, and then go to the store for another cup, but I always seem odd to myself. Thinking over this, and also the list of crying sessions, it occurred to me that I might have PMS. I still wasn't positive.

Wait, I'm not wearing pajamas am I? [I had to look at my body to remember what I had on]. Nope, no pajamas, but why the fuck am I wearing a "Hooters Las Vegas" t-shirt? I've never been there, and I don't have hooters. Earlier, I had been perplexed by the strange way people on the street had looked at me. I also wondered why shopkeeps and coffee vendors were snickering at me when I greeted them at the counter with my coffee, coffee accoutrements and tooth whitener strips. I had thought it was because I am clearly a failure as a human being, but it might have been the Hooters shirt.

What kind of an asshole puts on a Hooters shirt without even realizing it? Oh yeah...the kind of asshole who has PMS. It's that time of the month again.

Maxie jerked at the leash, and I scolded her by jerking back. She never minds me, not even with her cute, short fur. As we crossed a street, she spied a bunny in the bushes and darted for it at warp speed, ran till she reached the end of her extend-a-leash, hanging herself and nearly dislocating my arm in the process. Coffee spilled down the front of my jeans and Hooters shirt. I tried to wipe the hot bubbles of it off my braless chest, where is my bra?, but I made little progress and ended up smearing it about instead.

Maybe it was the leash jerking, or the spilt coffee. Perhaps it was the Hooters shirt in combination with the lack of hooters, or irritability from the hotness of the night. It could have been the twenty years of thinking I am a worthless asshole every time my mood swings southward. Whatever the cause, I was fucking pissed off.

I threw what was left of my coffee against the brick wall next to me. It splashed out and splattered all over the sidewalk and my feet, making Maxie yelp a little. I decided right then and there, in a Hooters shirt, wet with coffee, my feet covered in the foam cup shrapnel, that I would figure out a way to rid myself of this monthly invader. I would stop at nothing. I would experiment, explore, mix, ingest, cleanse, stretch, why I would even abstain - from masturbation if necessary.

Whatever it took to fix this malfunction, I would do it. I was going to tirelessly research, crusade against the dark hormonal forces, make the Lorenzo's Oil of PMS, because surely the cure for everything that ailed me came in pill form. It couldn't possibly stem from the way I treat myself.

A Discovery

I must admit, I didn't get around to my PMS crusade until the next day. After my outburst, I opted to masturbate a lot, and then I was too tired to tirelessly research. But once I was done masturbating the next morning, I was totally gung-ho in my crusade.

My internet research turned up little. It was the same advice from medical professionals I had been trying and then ultimately ignoring for years, the don't-drink-caffeine, get-plenty-of-exercise, take-your-B-vitamins bullshit. It may work with other women, but means nothing to me. I was beginning to get frustrated when I happened upon "Mistress Sparkle's All-Natural Web Ring."

It was an unorthodox health care site, pink, with a flowery masthead and bad button graphics that were supposed to look like gold coins, but were too orangey. There were quotes from famous Ayurvedic doctors, homeopathic specialists and anyone who means anything in the field of alternative medicine; you know, those crazy "quacks" who tout natural cures to ailments instead of the harsh chemistry our pharmaceutical companies, doctors and FDA approve of, but only if the money and politics are right.

I had tried Ayurveda--an ancient form of Indian medicine--in the past to cure a bout of insomnia. It worked far better than any sedative my doctor had prescribed me, and I haven't had a problem with sleeplessness since that episode. Following Mistress Sparkle's PMS link seemed like a good idea.

But the page at the end of that link startled me. Mistress Sparkle listed a number of questionable things I needed to do to cure myself of PMS. They went as follows:

-Parasite Cleanse
-Colon Cleanse
-Detoxifying Juice Fast

I clicked on the first link, parasite cleanse because there was a little "start here" icon next to it. The page began with a rundown on common intestinal and brain parasites, the roundworm, the intestinal fluke, the tapeworm etc. Mistress Sparkle included grotesque pictures of the various species to intensify the urgency. The all-natural cure she suggested was a mixture of three herbs: Black Walnut Hull, Wormwood and Cloves, taken orally twice a day for a week.

"By taking all three, the body can be ridd [sic] of over 100 speces [sic] of worms currently aflicting [sic] it. The Black Walnut and Wormwood kills of thee [sic] adults, the Cloves kill the eggs."

It seemed like a crock of shit to me, but I was on a crusade. I had promised to stop at nothing. I wasn't going to turn around and retreat at the first sign of quackery, oh no. I was going to follow this apparently unlicensed, mysterious e-doctor who cannot even spell simple words to the PMS-less fields of Elysium. I set out in search of the herbs.

Several hours later, I was at my sixth health food store, the Vitamin Shoppe on Clark Street in the heart of Boystown. I had procured the Cloves and Black Walnut, but still couldn't find the Wormwood. While searching the racks and wishing I had a cup of coffee, I ran into a gangly man nearly seven feet in height. He was wearing the Vitamin Shoppe polo shirt. His nametag read "Wanda."

Wanda: "Is there anything I can help you with?"

I explained to Wanda that I needed Wormwood. After he complimented me on my Hooters shirt and asked me if I had a good time in Vegas (Oh, crap), he took me into a separate section of the store, browsed the shelves for a minute or two, and then showed me a little bottle with "Wormwood" printed onto its label in green. Wanda's fingers were very long and thin, and at the end of each one was a French manicured acrylic nail.

Me: "Yep, that's the stuff I'm looking for." I said it slowly. My tongue was impaired, by my mind; I was speaking to Randy Johnson with long fake nails. I was speaking to the Big Unit with a "Wanda" nametag.

He was very good at his job, found the tincture I was looking for, carried it to the register, and rang it up with lightening quick speed, his French manicure clicking on the touch screen Vitamin Shoppe register. Before I knew it, I was paid, bagged and ready to go. But that's when Wanda asked me where I lived.

Me: "Ravenswood."
Wanda: "Oh how quaint. I have a friend who bought in that area about ten years ago and doubled her investment."
Me: "Oh, that's smart. Yeah, it's an up and coming neighborhood."

Dude, are you a drag queen, or what?

Wanda: "Yes, I really want to buy in that area, or maybe in Uptown, but I have to save up"...blah blah blah...more stuff about buying a home...

Wanda was obviously excited about the prospect of having his/her own home, and any warm body with two ears would have been a good one to chat with about the subject. He did so animatedly, the tips of his French manicure flailing about when speaking of crown molding. I didn't want to be rude, but I didn't want to talk about home owning, either, not when I needed coffee so badly. I could see "Caribou Coffee" through the window of the Vitamin Shoppe, and I would have jumped through plate glass to get there.

Me: [turning toward the door but not moving in that direction] "Yeah, that's smart. It's a good investment."
Wanda: "I know right? But what I really want to do is this"...twenty minute description of Wanda's plan to rehab a condo in Uptown...
Me: [taking small steps toward door so as to be polite to this nice man/woman] "Yeah, that's great. It's a good investment... uh... for sure."

Where are all the fucking customers? When will he/she stop talking about drywall? A drag queen who can drywall in acrylic nails is cool and all, but I need coffee!

The bell at the door chimed, and a customer came in needing assistance. I said goodbye and good luck to Wanda, ran through traffic for "Caribou Coffee" and ordered the largest coffee they had. After a few sips, I felt better. I kept thinking about Wanda in his polo and nails. Here he/she was, half man and half woman in the unkind light of day, oblivious to the judgment of others. He was a dancing Dionne Warwick by night, and a drywalling Randy Johnson by day, and he didn't care who knew. What I wouldn't give to be so unabashedly myself.

I took the vials home. The directions for the parasite cleanse called for thirty drops of each tincture in a cup full of water on an empty stomach. It tasted like rubbing alcohol and baked ham. While I choked it down, I thought to myself, this is total bullshit. I can't believe I'm doing this.

About an hour later my stomach started acting strangely. It was gurgling and rumbling, and there was a flopping feeling every minute or so. I was fully convinced that I had poisoned myself with Mistress Sparkle's concoction, and was dying. I laid down on my "couch" (read: my inflatable mattress from my bedroom) with cell in hand, ready to call a next of kin so that Maxie could be well taken care of after my demise, and wouldn't have to feed off my corpse to stay alive. This is so fucking stupid, Tyler. What have you done this time?

And then it happened.

A familiar feeling took hold of my colon, that feeling I get after a night of beer drinking, after eating too many beans, or right before a public speaking engagement. I bolted to my toilet and let loose the hell that had been traveling through my innards. It was rather like pissing out of my asshole, and ended as quickly as it had begun. I got up to flush the toilet, and that was when I saw "it."

It looked like a piece of cooked spaghetti, though it was much thicker in the middle. It was floating in a mass of what I can only assume was egg sacs, and upon closer inspection, I could discern that thousands of baby worms had plans to hatch in the nether regions of my colon. Mistress Sparkle's herbal miracle had foiled their plans. I was stunned and enraged.

I flushed the infestation, and went to my computer to see if I couldn't ID the creature. After clicking through an indeterminate amount of parasite profiles, I came upon the "Roundworm." (Ascaris Lumbricoides)

This motherfucker had been feasting on my flesh; his parents had feasted on my flesh! Upon further research, I found out that his baby brothers and sisters were partying in my brain fluid, fucking, and crapping and feeding off my gray matter. The bastards were interrupting my neurotransmitters. No wonder I can't function!

I immediately took a second dose of Mistress Sparkle's miracle serum. This was war.

Another Discovery

The next morning there were two more spaghetti worms in my toilet. I was repulsed. Upon further inspection of the "sample," I found tons of eggs and some other alien parts that were clearly not poop.

What's more, I wasn't as tired as I normally am in the morning. I began to wonder about the other cleanses Mistress Sparkle recommended. If this one was working so well, then why shouldn't I try the others?

Hours of tireless research later, I had learned much more about worms. I had also discovered that the average human at my size and weight carries seven pounds of intestinal plaque around. This meant that seven pounds of putrefied shit were stuck to the walls of my colon, disabling it from fully absorbing the nutrients my body needs. I looked at various pictures of colon plaque, which looked like twisted ropes of brown taffy, ten to twenty inches in length.

With this taffy inside my colon, and worms crapping in my brain, how could my body possibly function? OF COURSE I would have hormone problems! Of course I would go crazy before I got my period! I must cleanse my colon of the evil it carries! I must rid my body of the naughty wormies!

I clicked on the Colon Cleanse link. Mistress Sparkle's Colon Cleanse called for three things: a juice fast, the ingestion of something called "Psyllium Husk" which I later found out was just plain old Metamucil, and something else, something far scarier than the prospect of consuming nothing but juice for a week. The third Colon Cleanse step was a daily enema. I decided to ignore the last portion of the Colon Cleanse. I would block it out of my memory.

I went to Stanley's Produce Market on Elston to pick up the fruits and veggies I needed to make my detoxifying juice: Kale, Romaine, Ginger, Green Apples and Organic Lemons. The combination sounds gross, but is actually very tasty. Tangy and sweet.

I started my juice fast that night, and went to bed feeling much better about my health.

The Horror

The next day I was rather frustrated. I felt like a barrel of donkey shit, and all I wanted to do was lie on my "couch" (read: inflatable mattress) and cry. Once more, the things I cried about were inane:

-My fifth grade boyfriend fingering Missy Troy on the ski club bus
-All the victims of the "World's Worst Blizzards" on the History Channel
-The dialogue in "Revenge of the Sith"
-How I was going to explain my new "Finding Nemo" cereal bowl to my old "Tony the Tiger" cereal bowl. (I later decided to keep them on separate sides of the cabinet and pray they didn't find out about each other. Cowardly, I know).

I was following all of Mistress Sparkle's parasite and colon cleansing instructions, the rubbing alcohol/baked ham serum, the Psyllium Husk, the detoxifying Green Juice. But it wasn't doing anything for my PMS. I was still crying and still felt crazy. Wait...wasn't there one more step to a truly sparkly colon? Oh no! Oh no no no! You're not shooting water up your butthole!

An hour later, I was lying on my side shooting an at-home enema bottle of water up my butthole. I tried to focus on the episode of Laverne and Shirley I was watching, but it was difficult. I forced myself to breathe deeply, and squeezed away, yelping every few seconds. It felt very wrong; it felt like I was having anal sex with that water snake from "Abyss." I tried to imagine myself in a "safe place." I breathed and meditated, tried to distract myself, but no matter what relaxation technique I tried, the simple truth was this: enemas suck.

The bottle was only half in when I abandoned it. I ran to the toilet with my ass cheeks pinched together, sat down and let everything fly. Swimming in the enema mess was three smaller spaghetti worms and countless eggs. Disgusting.

Later that night, I did more research. I had, by this time, devoured the first sixty pages of Mistress Sparkle's All-Natural Web Ring. And though she couldn't properly spell "natural," she was clearly a sage. She wasn't like those money grubbing, pharmaceutical pigs. Nothing was for sale on her web site, and there were no paid ads. Here she was, offering up her decades of tireless research benevolently. Only the health and wellbeing of her brethren mattered to her.

My aberrance had to be the reason I still had PMS; I must have been misreading Mistress Sparkle's instructions. I searched the web ring for the mistake I had been making, but couldn't find it. I was too tired to do anything but berate myself for being a failure at life.

Pop Goes the Enema

The next morning I was feeling quite unstable. In fact, I felt fucking crazy. What's more, my Green Juice wasn't nearly as tasty as it had been the day prior, and this greatly upset me. Also, the Psyllium Husk was unbearably lumpy. I choked down chunks of it while doing further research into my PMS cure, stopping every so often to cry about the worms, stop my head from spinning, or worry about the ninjas that might be hiding in the bushes outside my window. Does Mistress Sparkle have a degree in anything?

Further down the rabbit hole of the web ring, I ran into a page that suggested toxins stored in our cells were the cause of every ailment, including PMS. Toxic substances such as preservatives, MSG and Aspartame could be found in almost all processed food, and the buildup of these chemicals in our cells is a significant factor in menstrual problems. "Only the Colon Cleanse can ridd [sic] your cells of toxic buildup."

And maybe it was the colon taffy, or the worms crapping in my brain. Perhaps it was those pesky ninjas in my bushes, but I was on fire. Enraged.

CONSPIRACY! We are betrayed by our government! Only the wise and learned Mistress Sparkle is forewarning us of these dangerous chemicals in our food. Gigantic ropes of alien waste are holding our colons back. They're holding ME back from becoming the best me I can be. How can I fly with lead in my belly and worms in my brain? I can't! The man is holding me down, keeping me in place because He fears my Irish passion and Iroquois spirituality, my drunken connection to nature. I frighten Him!

But I will not be chained by His constipatory abuse! I will blast my colon! I will write a religious colon-cleansing tome, and people will follow me. I will build a longhouse and put a keg of Guinness in it, and there, we will take back our country, one enema at a time. I DIDN'T LAND ON PLYMOUTH ROCK! PLYMOUTH ROCK LANDED IN MY COLON!

Minutes later I'm laying on my side shooting water into my asshole again. And maybe it was my Irish passion, or Iroquois spirituality, or perhaps it was the longhouse blueprint taking shape in my head like my drag queen friend's rehab plans, but nothing could stop me from shooting that bottle of water into my asshole. And once the bottle was gone, I waited.

Five minutes later, and there was no sign of re-emergence. Mistress Sparkle said this kind of thing was normal, that it usually takes about twenty minutes for the enema to re-emerge. I thought to myself, is Mistress Sparkle licensed in anything? But clearly, the government was the enemy here. I turned on Dr. Phil and put my reservations about Mistress Sparkle out of my head.

Dr. Phil was revisiting problem guests to see how they had progressed in therapy and weight loss. One woman had started at six hundred pounds. She walked onto the set four hundred pounds lighter, and when Dr. Phil presented her with an around-the-globe vacation as a reward for all her weight loss, I burst into tears.

The next segment featured formerly overweight brides to be, zipping up into their much smaller dream dresses. One of the brides was surprised by the arrival of her fiancée who had been stationed overseas for an unmentioned amount of time. He knelt and asked her to marry him again, and well...I burst into tears.

The next segment featured a bitchy gold digger who was torturing her husband for an affair he had. I burst into tears.

All that crying made me quite thirsty, so I went to the kitchen for a glass of water. While doing up the dishes in my sink, my friend Gigi called and asked me to meet her, Miss Kitty and Earthmuffin out at Salud, a bar on Milwaukee. I decided that getting out would be good for me, and told her I would meet her there in an hour.

An hour later, I was showered, shaved and sans Hooters shirt, sipping on wine with my friends at Salud. I excused myself to the bathroom to pee, and this is when it hit me that there was still an enema in my colon. Where had it gone?

Six glasses of wine and two shots of tequila later, there was still no sign of my enema. In dismay, I went back to my old pusher, Chester Cheetah, and fell into a bag of Cheetos.

A Revelation

The next day, enema still missing and fingers still traffic cone orange, I decided to try out this thing called "reason." Who was this Mistress Sparkle woman? Her name and credentials were listed on several pages. Her degrees were from colleges in Canada that I had never heard of. Her practices were in Tijuana, Mexico. When I Googled her name, I found that she had been arrested and convicted for practicing medicine without a license, and was currently on trial for defrauding cancer victims in Maine.

I was pretty upset by this discovery. It seemed as if I had reached the end of the PMS rope, that I would always go crazy every twenty-eight days no matter what I did about it. No amount of pill taking, exercising, dieting, abstaining or even shooting water into my butthole would cure me. There was no medicine for what ailed me.

I worked at a web site for a few hours, but I was too apathetic to make any progress. My mother called to check on me. It seems like there's always a need for her to worry about me. We talked about many things, but not my Bunny Blog, because she doesn't read it and doesn't like me to talk about it. Girls aren't supposed to write about such things.

And after she made fun of my fashion sense, she moved on to my lack of a steady nine to five job. Usually I would giggle and offer myself up as a joke. But this time, I refused.

BunnyMommy: "Yeah, well SOME of us get up before noon, ya know."
Me: "Yeah, and some of us are boring, so who gives a shit?" This didn't go over well.

Later at Starbucks, the Spanish barrista made fun of me for wearing the same Hooters shirt four days in a row. I told him to go fuck himself, and we had a good laugh. While carrying my coffee back to my apartment, Maxie jerked at her leash. She didn't get treats for a whole day because of it, not even her cute fur cut could sway me. And when I wanted to drink a pot of coffee, I fucking drank it.

That was a week ago, and I haven't cried about a damn thing.

Trees, Suns, Princesses, Wild Beasts...

Though I used to enjoy drawing them, there are no more wild beasts. I don't have to worry about them. I live in a blessed place at an easy time, and I don't have to struggle to keep alive. I have no mortal enemies but one, the bitch in my head who tells me I'm not good enough.

When I was a girl, my ears were full of reasons to dislike myself. Its no wonder I drew so many exploding heads. I did everything wrong, and said everything wrong. My hair was wrong, my clothes were wrong. I wasn't polite enough, my grades weren't good enough, I didn't do enough. I just wasn't good enough.

And later on, it didn't matter whether anyone told me I was or wasn't good enough. I carried this bitch in my head, and she stepped in to tell me I was aberrant any time I didn't fit into the cardigan someone picked out for me. At times she was so loud I couldn't get out of bed.

But her time has come. I know where this bitch sleeps, and I'm tired of her shit. She and I are going twelve rounds. And after I beat the shit out of her in my Hooters shirt, we'll reconvene at the longhouse for Guinness draughts and tequila shots. You can shoot water up your ass if you want to, but I don't recommend it.

Has anyone seen my enema?