I’ve been enjoying these political blogs and websites lately. What are your favorites?

• http://politics.drumsnwhistles.com/
• http://www.npr.org/templates/topics/topic.php?topicId=1102
• http://caffertyfile.blogs.cnn.com/
• http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/
• http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/
• http://www.factcheck.org/
• http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/

I’m dealing with a rather fundamental health condition (more about that in a minute) and thinking about what it means to be middle aged.

The middle of what, I wonder. Life expectancy in the U.S. is about 78 years, so I’m a fair piece past the middle. I wonder instead if we should divide life into “quarter ages,” with a bonus period at the end:

• 1st quarter, or Q1: Birth to young adulthood (which I’m arbitrarily setting at age 20).
• 2nd quarter, or Q2: young adulthood to middle-aged (ages 21-40).
• 3rd quarter, or Q3: middle-aged (ages 41-60).
• 4th quarter, or Q4: old (ages 61-80).
• Bonus: 80+ (Most of the gals in my family live at least until their early 80s, so I’m hopeful I’ll hit my bonus years some day too.)

Today, at 47, I’m a Q3’er.

A Q3’er Looks at 47

Every year as I age, I am humbled by my body’s ongoing concessions to gravity and the life stresses I’ve placed on myself. I rarely look at my boobs unless there’s a bra between them and the mirror; a favorite blogger of mine recently referred to her post-nursing breasts as Twin Beaver Tails, and I sympathize, chica. Me too.

And various ailments are surfacing for me. This year alone, I’ve dealt with kidney stones, pneumonia, anemia, a painful ovarian cyst, and more. And then … I suffered the latest indignity for a month before giving in and slinking into the doctor’s office one more time. Dammit.

Actually, It’s a problem I’ve had for almost two decades. When my first daughter was born in 1990, I was in labor for more than 20 hours – hard enough labor that my uterus got overly stretched and stressed, developing a Bandl’s ring. So it’s no surprise that the lengthy labor also left me with Mother Nature’s little kiss goodbye … hemmorhoids. Inside. Outside. Ring around the rosey.

Butt … Ouch

Ooh, no one wants to admit they have those. Aren’t heinous heinies and butt boo-boos limited just to old coots? (That’s not ME, is it?) This problem hasn’t bothered me much over the years, aside from an occasional flare-up if I indulge too much with jalapenos or go too wacky with fiber in my diet all of a sudden. But about a month ago – several months into my newly healthy and high-fiber diet with a tiny bit more exercise than I’m used to getting – I started having trouble sitting down. Thus began a parade of creams, ointments, witch hazel-soaked wipes, and the ever-delightful waxy suppositories. Did any of it help at all? Nothing, nada, zip. I was perching one cheeked at the office all the time and still wincing. Spending my weekends lying on the couch to keep the pressure off my sore fanny was no fun either.

So I decided that life was too short to have a constant and literal pain in the ass.

My doc was sympathetic, reassuring me I was not being a hypochondriac. “No, these are bad,” she said, snapping off her rubber glove. (It was the kind of exam that made my day and hers Extra Special.) But the medicine she gave me … I swear that stuff is worth every freaking dollar I paid. It didn’t fix things, but it was a vast (if temporary) relief.

You should see the ARSENAL of medicine she prescribed. It’s a frigging box the size of a large CD case, full of 12 tubes arranged neatly in two decks like ammo in a box, and 12 little applicator caps in individually wrapped plastic packets that are attached to each other, like a Mexican bandito’s bullet belt.

Photo credit: © iStockphoto.com/Dennis Cox

Ass ammo.

Ass arsenal.

ARSEnal.

Next: I am SO ready for my appointment with the booty surgeon on Oct. 8. I’m getting things fixed once and for all, and this is just part of the master plan. One by one, I’m trying to do some long-neglected maintenance on my body:

• Diet (underway, with Weight Watchers).
• Exercise (coming up, after surgery makes walking more bearable).
• Booty pain: buh-bye!
• (And on the other end …) dental veneers. (Exorbitantly priced, but I hope to be able to reward myself with this once I get to my goal weight. Way too many diet Cokes and coffees over the years have affected my pearly whites. I will not go through life with a khaki smile.)
• Skin work. I’ve got a few skin tags on my neck (*shudder*) and I’m getting some weird little bumps on my face. Not zits, though. They trouble me, and I can barely keep my hands off them.
• Tummy tuck & a boob lift. (Dare I hope we can afford this too? Can you finance repairs to the balcony and the storage room at the same time?)

Why go to all that bother, you ask? After all, no one’s looking at me but myself and maybe my loving hubby. And I’m not heinous. I’m just not happy that I’ve done enough to address the things that bother me. It’s not an effort to look 20 again, and — honestly — if I never fix any of these things, I truly will feel OK about myself. But I will not be happy unless I at least try to exert myself on behalf of health and vanity again.

And, er, I’d really, really, really like to sit down again comfortably without having to reach for the humbling O-ring cushion.

So I am working on my repair list & my slow-down-the-damage-dammit list, because I want to live through Q3 and beyond with gusto. And with no need of Preparation H.

Your Turn

How about you? What are you doing to repair the ravages of time? :o) Or have you taken care of it all along? (Good for you! Although I think I might hate ya just a teeny bit. Just a smidge. Hardly worth mentioning.)

I. AM. AN. IDIOT.

I *swear* to you that I thought I had typed my last post a certain way. But I did not. I originally meant to say (and have since corrected my last blogpost to say):

I’m also OK with prohibitions about clothing that promotes illegal substances, violence, profanity, sexual suggestiveness, or gangs.

Yeah — the “prohibitions about” is what I accidentally left out. (My brain assumed it would be clear in context that I meant, “I’m OK with your current wording about prohibiting these things.” But no, not so clear.) So I’ve just sent my school district an impassioned email that basically said, “Hey, drugs, violence, swearing, sexay thangs — bring ‘em on for the kids!”

*thumping head on my desk*

This is SO me.