My most embarrassing moment

Last night I had a horribly embarrassing moment that I should probably keep to myself, but for some reason, am compelled to share.

I was driving home from a shoot with some other photographers. I was going down this small hill--about 45 mph which was the speed limit. My mind was thinking about the group I just left, what I was going to do today, and still mulling over incidents from the weekend--yeah, still thinking about them!

Anyway, I approach the bottom of the hill which is a light and the light is yellow. Now, normally I would just go right on through the light, but my eye spots a cop sitting at the other side of the light getting ready to turn in front of me. Now, a series of thoughts flashed through my head in an instant: 1. Bean just got a ticket for running a yellow/red light 2. I probably shouldn't run a yellow light in front of a cop in case it turns red while I'm under it--can't afford a ticket 3. I'm going fast enough to make it, but should I try?

So, what do I do? I slam on my brakes, screeching to a halt and the above picture is kinda what I looked like. There literally was smoke and a horrible smell of burning rubber. As soon as I "land", I look over at the cop and give him the a-okay sign with my fingers. He kinda smiles, waves and proceeds to turn. Meanwhile, all of the other people sitting at the light who got to witness my Jeff Gordon moves, begin to turn, look at me and laugh/smile/shake their heads, whatever. I'm sitting there mortified/laughing/cringing/shaking, any combination of these. The stupidity of what I did is still making me laugh today, thinking about what I must've looked like. Let's not even mention the fact that I never even looked in my rearview mirror to see if anyone was behind me and the disaster that would've resulted if there had been. <>

Anyhow, that was my night last night. I'm thinking in another 6 months I might have to have my license taken from me.

So, I think it might be menopause

I haven't felt well for a couple of months. I've been extremely tired all the time, moodier than normal, weird aches and pains. I went to the dr. 2 weeks ago where she had me get a chest x-ray and run some bloodwork to see if I was anemic. Everything came back normal. I've been worried. Worried because I don't feel myself...not sick, but not myself. Enter Google.

This week I've been googling perimenopause which is the anywhere up to 10 year period prior to menopause--the actual cessation of your period. Many of my symptoms line up with it. Then today while I was grocery shopping something hit me. I've been eating 2 teaspoons of flax seed in my yogurt every morning for several months. I ran out of it a couple of months ago. Could this be my problem? I don't know but I bought the flax seed tonight and promptly came home and put it on some yogurt as a snack. I'll let you know if my symptoms improve.

I think I'm officially old

Lately I've noticed a trend with girls younger than me...they all look the same. Take a look at these examples:

Now, granted, The Girls Next Door have bigger boobs than the average girl, but come on. These girls basically look exactly the same. Where's the individuality?

The Hills' girls all look the same except, thank God, for Audrina. They throw one brunette in there to kinda help you figure out who the blondes are. Audrina lives with Lauren--or at least she used to when I used to watch this show.

I can hardly keep straight the new blondes on the country music scene. They look too much alike. Now I can tell their voices apart and let's be honest, no one's as beautiful as Carrie Underwood (who's not in this picture, just in case you can't tell them apart either), but still, you get my point.

Now, back in my day, you could tell the girls apart. There was individuality, self-expression, rebelliousness, the need to stand out from the crowd.

Designing Women--now there's a group you can tell apart. Look, each of them even has a different hair color. Now that's diversity.

The cast of Dynasty. They even had a black woman to attempt to represent the real diversity in America.

Our girl Reba. Now that's a unique style she's rockin' here...the curly mullet. Why has that faded from today's fashion scene? I'd love to see the lovely, bitchy Heidi from the Hills workin' this 'do. Nah, she doesn't have the balls to make this 'do work like Reba did.

Can I just say that I loved Valerie Bertinelli when she was in "One Day at a Time"? I still do think she's the cat's pajamas--whatever that means. In today's terms I think I had a definite "girl crush" on her. I think "girl crush" means I want to be her not do her. After all, who didn't want to be married to Eddie Van Halen and live the life she was living then. Come on.


The Judds. Even Ashley was rockin' some individuality, man.

And of course, the queen of all individuality and rebelliousness--Madonna, circa 1980s. This picture even has identified her marks of individuality.

Oh, what I wish the girls today had the fortitude we had in the 80s to say "Screw the world. We'll be who we want to be!"

Well, that's how I remember the 80s anyway.