Menopausal Musings is a collection of small novellas. Each novella follows the inner world of one character's contorted thoughts as they cope with the crisis of middle age. We observe these afflicted people as they exist at different times of day. All are urban characters who live alone in New York City. All are trapped within the walls of their apartments and trapped in their minds and unable to escape. We listen and observe as their minds twirl with hopes, dreams, bitterness, and anger. We cringe as we watch their souls cringe because of isolation from family, friends, and the rest of humanity. They're humans set adrift in a unforgiving world with its billions of unmarked faces. Yet, their pain is our pain; their longing is our longing. And, that is the whole point.

A woman muses about buying lovely new panties; another sets out on the trip of a lifetime; a blogger offers information, support, and community to perimenopausal women; researchers uncover myths and misconceptions about migrant and refugee women's experiences of menopause; a gerontology scholar extrapolates for menopause the meanings of cultural representations of childbirth; a sociologist and intersex advocate challenges her medically constructed menopause; young women's stories inform an inquiry into the health and social repercussions of primary ovarian insufficiency—all in a collection of research papers and personal narratives that moves far beyond the idea of menopause as a mere biological marker. While biomedical and feminist researchers agree that menopause is a time of transition and border crossing, they offer diverse viewpoints about whether perimenopause and menopause signal deficiency and burden, or growth and freedom, or both. So too, contributors to this collection—influenced by factors of age, cultural background, societal context, and physical and psychological experience—vary significantly in their perspectives of this process. Research, analysis, narrative, poetry, and art intermingle to create a multi-textured montage that challenges stereotypes, probes relationships, and defies categorization. Musings on Perimenopause and Menopause: Identity, Experience, Transition provides insight into how women think about and experience the transition to menopause in contemporary times.

A woman muses about buying lovely new panties; another sets out on the trip of a lifetime; a blogger offers information, support, and community to perimenopausal women; researchers uncover myths and misconceptions about migrant and refugee women's experiences of menopause; a gerontology scholar extrapolates for menopause the meanings of cultural representations of childbirth; a sociologist and intersex advocate challenges her medically constructed menopause; young women's stories inform an inquiry into the health and social repercussions of primary ovarian insufficiency--all in a collection of research papers and personal narratives that moves far beyond the idea of menopause as a mere biological marker. While biomedical and feminist researchers agree that menopause is a time of transition and border crossing, they offer diverse viewpoints about whether perimenopause and menopause signal deficiency and burden, or growth and freedom, or both. So too, contributors to this collection--influenced by factors of age, cultural background, societal context, and physical and psychological experience--vary significantly in their perspectives of this process. Research, analysis, narrative, poetry, and art intermingle to create a multi-textured montage that challenges stereotypes, probes relationships, and defies categorization. Musings on Perimenopause and Menopause: Identity, Experience, Transition, provides insight into how women think about and experience the transition to menopause in contemporary times.

This book is equal parts self-help and hilarious reality written by a funny lunatic the last Guru you will ever need folks right in this book. Adrian yup that’s me writing in the third person like well… a crazy person, (calm down its ok for you to laugh at my crazy) he has written an inspiring tale of survival and not becoming just another victim or statistic, this book details serious childhood and adulthood trauma from physical, verbal and sexual abuse to bullying in school and growing up poor with a tyrant of a father in the hot streets of Miami, Florida and into adulthood in Denver, Colorado.

Valerie Harper has a message for women of a certain age: "Work those laugh lines!" With the irreverence and wit that made her one of television's most beloved personalities, Harper (a.k.a. Rhoda Morgenstern) takes on those phony "fabulous at 50" books written by women whose skin is free of laugh lines and who wouldn't know a cellulite pocket if it bit them on the backside. With her trademark shoot-from-the-hip, call-'em-like-she-sees-'em style, she helps women celebrate, with humor and grace, what it means to be middle aged. Harper's essays explore the treacherous terrain women must travel -- from the tyrannies of fashion to the unmentionables of menopause. She tackles the most perplexing questions of the day: If you wear a size zero, do you exist? Would menopause be revered if it happened to men? Do calories count if you eat standing up? Are dressing rooms fitted with fun house mirrors? Today I Am a Ma'am is the perfect antidote to the youth obsession of our culture, offered by America's most reliable girlfriend. It is Humor Replacement Therapy for midlife women, a book you can pick up when ever you need a laugh or a reminder that midriff drift is not the end of the world.

A laugh-out-loud, pick-me-up collection of stories for the millions of women who are battling hot flashes, mood swings and mental lapses.

A laugh-out-loud account of one woman's journey to the brink of middle age as she discovers her new place in the grand scheme of things Is there an invisible line we cross at a certain age when we become 'un-chat-up-able' and become someone's mum? When do barmen and supermarket check-out operators start calling us 'madam' and why do some women have the unnatural urge to cut their own hair with nail scissors or run away to Buddhist retreats when they hit forty?In this hilarious collection of stories from the brink of middle age, Kerre shares her insights into what makes us tick as women 'of a certain age'. topics explored include: coping with the empty nest; shoes, shoes and other indulgences; when is it futile to dress to impress?; is there such a thing as a female mid-life crisis?; and many more.told in Kerre's frank and self-deprecating style, this is a hilarious account of living life to the fullest - no matter what your age.

Career Narratives and Academic Womanhood is a collection of essays in which life writing scholars theorize their early-career, mid-career, and late-career experiences with the documents that shape their professional lives as women: the institutional auto/biography of employment letters, curriculum vitae, tenure portfolios, promotion applications, publication and conference bios, academic website profiles, and other self-authored narratives required by institutions to compete for opportunities and resources. The essays explore the privacy laws, peer review, disciplinary standards, digital media, and other standardizing tools, practices and policies that impact women’s self-construction at pivotal junctures at which they promote themselves in the spaces of academic careers.

Popular pattern designer Jenifer Dick and expert quilter Angela Walters have teamed up to provide 20 modern, diverse projects reinterpreting the Nine-Patch block. Nine-patches are easy to piece, aesthetically pleasing, and versatile, making it an ideal beginner's block, but also a favorite of more experienced quilters. Projects use a wide variety of techniques, from basic piecing and improv to paper piecing and wonky piecing. Each project includes detailed, step-by-step instructions for piecing plus quilting!

Feeling at the top of her game when she is suddenly diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's Disease, Harvard psychologist Alice Howland struggles to find meaning and purpose in her everyday life as her concept of self gradually slips away. A first novel. Simultaneous.