Oh, Divas. I am having like The Worst PMS ever! It’s as if my ovaries, Grinchified to the Extreme, are balking over all this holiday cheer. What are some of your menstrual managing secrets? Sometimes I find that a good, juicy steak with all its iron is the answer, dining like a vampire trying to make myself feel alive again.

Other times, tons of vitamins and wheatgrass do the trick: witchy concoctions of raw juice bar offerings bubbling over in their dank green and otherworldly orange vats.

And still other times, it’s OTC meds to the rescue: pain killers, diuretics, Tylenol and Midol. Because sometimes a woman needs to smart bomb the hell out of the rebel factions in her own body if she wants to survive.

And then there’s my favorite: Emotional Punching Bags! Those closest to you, bless their hearts. Last week, I picked fights with, in this order:

1– a guy I was dating who sent me an annoying text message. I let him have it with both barrels. Oops.

2– my dearest childhood friends from home with whom I grew up. One of us is getting married, and an emailed response to my rejected bachelorette party ideas left everyone shocked.

I swear I’m not usually like this! Is it the holidays? The cheap men and bad liquor? Or just some inexplicable lunar cycle? Should I just embrace the witchy, evil, dark magic side of myself? Because at the end of the day, it’s not that I’m NOT feeling truly angry with disappointing dates and friends who meddle, it’s just that usually I am too much of a lady to say anything.

I don’t want to be confrontational, which basically means that I don’t want to let people know how I’m REALLY feeling. Should I thank my pulsing, aching ovaries for their candor?

Because, although crude, the text message whammy I sent to the disappointing date had a kernel of truth. And my hometown friends? Well their ideas of a bachelorette party would make even Pollyanna be all, hey girls, you’re supposed to get down and dirty. I can handle a nixed stripper, but no talk of sex whatsoever so that we don’t embarrass the bride? Are you out of your mind?? (I had already purchased the penis straws and the game, "Pin the Blank on the Man.")

In closing, I’d love to know your thoughts. Being a woman is so tricky! If we are ever off kilter, ever dangerous enough to speak our minds, we are hysterical, or it’s that time of the month. I think we are taught early and often not to take on the world with both barrels, or ovaries. Because if we actually harnessed that irritable, boiling, viscous raw emotion, goddess help the power structure. They wouldn’t survive an hour.

And who knows? We might actually LIKE living on the edge and expressing ourselves!

So why not try an experiment- embrace the bloat! isn’t it a metaphor for all the hot-air filled people around you? rejoice in the lead-filled breasts that pain with every movement. don’t they reflect your heavy, aching heart? defy convention and be pms-power this month! (well, perhaps next month is better, after the presents have been distributed. No one wants coal in their silk stockings…) 

*(don’t forget to check the latest holiday air travel restrictions always updated in Diva Says!!)