inhale-inhale exhale-exhale

So ok look. The point is not the flared leg by itself. These cannot be yoga pants. These are, and you have to understand this if you are too young to have worn them, BLUE JEANS. And this was the last years before all jeans were 70% spandex.

They were denim, and they weren't bell bottoms. They hung loose from the knee in a way that would make a wizard envious. We all walked around like we were wearing hakama. And they dragged on the ground. That was important. Ragged cuffs. If your jeans weren't so long that they had ratty cuffs, they were embarrassingly short.

And the thing about denim is that it's a twill weave and it's cotton. So not only does it hold a lot of water, it wicks. Walking around in these suckers on a wet day could get you wet to the knees even if you never stepped in a puddle.

Then you'd go inside and take off your shoes and try to avoid letting your freezing, wet, filthy pant legs touch your skin.

- shorter time between periods

- irregular periods

- hot flashes and/or cold flashes

- fucked up sleep

- OMG NIGHT SWEATS

- Vagina as dry as the Sahara desert

- lighter periods and/or endless bleeding like it's The Flood but it's in your pants

- lack of interest in Adult Fun Times

This time of joy can last anywhere from a couple of years to a god damn decade and there's no medical way right now to predict it.

Here's some of the REAL bullshit they don't tell you about but your dinosaur aunt is here to let you know:

- You can start perimenopause in your 30s, don't listen to idiot doctors who tell you you're "too young" because they don't know your body like you do.

- Perimenopause will make you HELLA DUMB. Seriously, I'm talking Bigly broken brain. Brain fog? Check. Short term memory? Wave goodbye to it. Ability to make words form out of thoughts? Yeah, good luck to you.

- Perimenopause can cause horrible fatigue because in addition to losing estrogen, you're also losing testosterone. Oh and that also leads to muscle wasting, cool cool.

- Things might suddenly hurt more because estrogen is known to be neuroprotective.

- If you're super lucky like I am, and like to collect rare illnesses, you might even get Burning Mouth Syndrome 💀

- And meanwhile, while you're going through this bullshit, you'll be getting gaslit by doctors who are operating based on 30 year old debunked data about how HRT causes breast cancer (not really) and that they shouldn't put you on it until you're in actual menopause. (Data shows starting HRT early can potentially prevent Alzheimer's in later years.)

- There are entire online clinics right now (I use Midi Health) focused on providing care for peri and menopausal patients and they will happily prescribe you HRT even if your regular PCP or OBGYN do not (if you meet the criteria). I've been pretty impressed with how holistically they view the patient. For full disclosure, I learned about them from my integrative health doctor and they do not accept Medicare (yet).

I'm 46 years old right now and I've been symptomatic for perimenopause for the last 8 years, although it's gotten the most dramatic in the past 2 years or so, which I hope means I'm almost done, holy hell. Yeah I was on the early side, but if it can happen to me, it can happen to you, so it's never too early to think about these things. And I hope to at least spare some of you the mind-fuckery I've been through because no one told me about most of this stuff, including my own mother who just DOESN'T REMEMBER what happened to her and now I completely understand why. And because I also have a connective tissue disease, I used to just dismiss my pain and fatigue as being caused by that illness rather than the loss of hormones.

Anyways, this is why we need Elders in our lives, so they can do Grandma Story Hour like I just did and validate you when the entire medical field tries to gaslight you. I hope you've found some or all of this educational/useful. Please share with your friends because we really do NOT talk about this stuff enough. (Ewwww Moon Blood!)

It made me enthusiastic(!) to wake up(!!) each Tuesday to the new episode even if it left me feeling a weird mix of nostalgia and longing. I kept sighing no takie życie all day (c'est la vie does not quite cut it, I had to resort to my Slavic sensibilities). You know the urge to wander aimlessly with the hands behind your back reminiscing about life in general? This show gave me that urge.

I want to have this slice of life in my rotation every week for a foreseeable future. I want to grow old with these guys you know.

Life in Smokey Blue

A DOG AND A PLANE | EP1

Bonus:

but i think, if life in smokey blue doesnt read as Pretty Damn Romantic (i didnt say you have to like it, but its overtly romantic) from the start, you might want to like. reevalute what you think of as "romantic"

like look at how the events play out: 8 years ago, kuji had a one night stand with azuma in an attempt to purge himself of his romantic feelings for the man so he could devote himself to caring for his father. this failed, and when theyre reunited in episode 1 kuji finds Multiple excuses to keep azuma by his side. when he fails the job he intially hires him for, he hires him for Another.

he spends cash out of pocket just to keep azuma with him, not to mention wanting azumas life to improve. for azumas part, he Immediately makes himself comfortable in kujis house. kujis is someone he feels Comfortable with like no one else. when we meet tajimi, who arguably alters the course of azumas life JUST as much as kuji, their interactions are obviously different. azuma isnt whining to tajimi over the phone to entreat him to come see him without having to say the words.

theres lot of small moments too, the first goodbye kiss in episode 2, when kuji admits he had feelings for azuma, azumas first instinct is to offer his head for strokes like a cat, kuji petulantly smacking his cigarettes on azumas last day, etc

and now by episode 8 the more mushy interactions have started, because all the romantic dominoes set up in the prior 7 episodes fell right into place

"No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear."

Most of the books in Life in Smokey Blue aren’t real. The original book they translate together and the favorite childhood story they discuss are both creations of the series itself.

But Ghosts—the book Azuma leaves at the funeral—is real. And I think that means something.

Ghosts is a short story by Paul Auster about a man ordered by a higher-up to constantly watch another man named Black. The strange thing is, Black—the man being watched—doesn’t really do anything. He just sits, reads, and writes.

That simplicity slowly drives the narrator insane. He becomes obsessed with finding some deeper meaning in Black’s actions, some hidden purpose beyond what’s right in front of him. The desperate need to understand consumes him until he gradually loses his own sense of self in the process and can no longer distinguish himself from the man he’s supposed to be watching. His identity as an individual collapses and he becomes, in a sense, a ghost.

I’ll let you draw your own connections, but I think this story matters. I think it says something about identity and about Azuma and Kuji’s search for it.

Throughout Life in Smokey Blue, both of them spend a lot of time trying to understand who they are and where they belong. But that search often becomes tangled up in other people and things. For Kuji, it’s tied to his father and the house he grew up in. For Azuma, it’s tied to family, his college mentor, and the expectations he’s built for himself.

Maybe that’s what they’re both struggling against: the danger of searching for identity through others—of becoming so consumed with understanding them and their needs that you slowly lose sight of who you are.

in episode 3, he listens to azuma say this

and you can see him recognize it as the exact experience he went through.

when it happened to kuji, there was no one there for him. we know he doesnt have the kind of relationship with his brother where they can talk. he said he "vented" to sawada-san and mikami-san about his dad's overbearing habits, but that doesnt mean he expressed his truest anxieties to them

he had to be alone, but azuma doesnt. not when kuji is there

you have to imagine how much kuji would have LOVED to have someone there to say such a thing to him. to have experienced a timeline where he didn't have to figure it out on his own.

fast forward to episode 7.

we know kuji spent two years alone in that house with his grief. no one to talk to, no one to rely on. he not only had to watch his father age and slip away, after the fact he had to carry the weight of it on his own, in that house full of metaphorical ghosts. we know his brother didnt come back even one time, mired in his own complex feelings about their father

and he says he struggles to find an excuse to talk to mikami-san, which means he hadn't really opened up to her in the last two years

so when azuma implies tajimi-san is likely dying...

and then clearly lies about how he's feeling...

we can see in kuji's eyes that he's absolutely not letting things lie.

so he likely wastes thousands of yen to rush back to japan in time for taijimi-san's funeral, because money matters less to him that azuma not being alone

and after he forces azuma to say how he truly feels, kuji gives azuma what kuji wished someone would have done to him when he lost his father (and i imagine his mother was well, his dad doesnt strike me as a man who hugged his grieving children)

a damn hug.