I was listening to Pandora (and not Spotify because I’m old and Pandora were on the scene first and I’m lazy / set in my ways) when an old song I used to be obsessed with came on. If you haven’t noticed, anything can inspire a blog post in my weird brain and hearing this song was enough to trigger a whole thought chain from past me to future me.

I haven’t listened to Monica 'Don’t Take It Personal (Just One Of Dem Days' in years - over a decade, even. Not since I got through puberty and emerged a tolerable human being. This song makes so much more sense now I know what PMS is! I mean, I was a disgruntled and unhappy teen so I couldn’t differentiate between regular me and PMS me - back then I had one of dem hormonal days every day. Now I’ve developed into a decent person with passable charm (fake it til you make it, people), I know when hormones are making me unreasonable, melodramatic and a total biatch each month.

I'm mature enough now to take myself out of the equation of life so I don't take my moodiness out on others and create more bad vibes. Well, when I can - at work I just have to suck it up and my poor desk buddy doesn't know when I shut down and don't want to talk that it's not him, it's me. I guess we've worked together long enough for me to just tell him...

Dave, I PMS mid-month every month and there's one day in the lead up where I turn into an emotional wreck and want to cry for no reason; and then one day when the bleeding starts where I just want to lie down and be left alone to die a slow, impending, miserable death. I will warn you next time I'm extra hormonal since you don't read my blog.

At home, I can simply announce it to the housemate (Little Sissy Pham) and then sit in a grumpy lump on the couch or curled up in my bed. And she may or may not feed me bags of potato chips and chocolate. I do the same for her. Luckily we're not completely synched so usually on my awful or exhausted days she's OK, and on her awful or exhausted days I'm OK. Sisters don't have to do it for themselves.

PMS, girls and guys, is a bitch. Everyone experiences hormonal changes differently so sorry to say there's no simple rules to follow when navigating your way through rampaging hormones. Maybe one day we'll live in a society where we can just take a PMS day from work each month and openly tell people 'I'm bleeding and don't feel so hot' but till that day comes I'll subtly try to avoid humans and limit my anger to myself. If I ever tell you to please stop talking at me, think of this song and 'Don't take it personal.'