Listen, guys, maybe you don’t want to read about this topic, but fully 49.558% of the population has to deal with it every month. Whether you give it a cutesy name like Aunt Flo or get all biblical and gripe about being in the red tent, the truth of it is, periods happen. Every month, for four decades of a woman’s life or so. You men make snarky remarks about how it makes us irrational or cranky, but I think fully 99.99% of women would say it is the men in our life, not our monthly visitor, that really makes us cranky.

See, here’s the thing: we’ve had a long, long time to figure out how to deal with our periods and adjust accordingly. Maybe if it’s a particularly crampy month, we pick up an extra bottle of Advil and continue on with our daily lives. It’s when you men do something completely illogical—like buy a boat or motorcycle when we’re making homemade laundry detergent from slivers of used soap in an effort to save a few bucks, for chrissake—that we go all head-spinning-Linda-Blair on you. It has nothing to do with our monthly cycles and everything to do with you.

But I digress. Because the whole point of my blog this week is this: I just discovered my current employer now provides sanitary supplies in the ladies’ room—for free. And this one simple decency has completely revolutionized the workplace.

That’s right, ladies: my company springs for tampons. I want you to take that in for a moment. Yes, jealousy is an appropriate reaction. I’m still pinching myself to see if I’ll wake up.

For those of you out there with a Y chromosome, let me explain: we women will spend more in six months on sanitary supplies than most of you will spend on condoms in your lifetime. We’ve ruined countless panties, white shorts, cute dresses, and bedsheets, because Mother Nature is not as regular as you might think, and she likes to surprise us from time to time to keep us on our toes. Women have an elaborate system we put into place as soon as we start a new job: we seek out women close to our own age, and quickly learn if they prefer tampons or pads. This will be our emergency support when accidents happen (and they do). In turn, we try to make sure we have a few extra Tampax tucked away to help out our sisters in kind. And there’s no bonding experience quite like discovering you’ve now grown so close to your female friend, you two are now on the same cycle. But it ain’t easy. And it gets expensive.

Of course, this new benefit wasn’t announced in a memo or anything at work—after all, we’re not allowed to speak of such things, are we? But the whispering last week among the women (one lady was spotted using a panty liner to dab away the tears) was enough to signal bold new advancements were happening in the workplace. Women were smiling. One was even singing. The men looked puzzled. Honestly, I’ve never been so excited about feminine products in my life. And I was feeling something else: enormous pride in the company I work for.

My only hope is that other organizations out there will get on board and start offering complementary sanitary supplies (and no, those stupid overpriced vending machines in the ladies’ rooms that charge a buck a tampon do not count). This one simple benefit turned me from a semi-engaged employee to the company’s biggest cheerleader.

It’s a whole new world, people, though I don’t understand why companies haven’t been doing this all along. After all, prejudice against menstruation should never be tolerated—period.

The universe has a funny way of balancing things out, doesn’t it? And by “funny” I mean “not funny” and “kind of cruel.” Let me explain.

I had a pretty good day Wednesday—arguably it was spectacular. Definitely in my top five of satisfying days. My commute was lovely, work was fantastic, and that evening, I had an opportunity to watch Survivor in the presence of Joe Mena, one of the players currently on the show, which as you might imagine was freaking awesome. See? Don’t I look happy in this picture? Also, my apologies to Richard Hatch, but Joe is now my new favorite Survivor player ever. (Maybe if you'd invited me to a viewing party, Rich. Just sayin'.)


As Jason and I drove home that night, still gibbering about how totally cool our evening had been, and me suspecting I’d sounded like a big dork at the event but for once, not caring about my geekiness, I had the loveliest thought: Today was a good day. I haven’t had one of these in a while. Thank you, universe.

And the universe responded in a quiet, reptilian voice: Oh, don’t worry. You’ll pay. But I was laughing in delight over my perfect day when the universe said this, so I didn’t quite catch that last part.

Thursday was a little different.

The morning commute was riddled with school buses. When I finally made it in, my mug shattered when I went to get coffee, slicing my palm. I had three meetings in a row, and nobody bothered to tell me until lunchtime that my fly was down—and undoubtedly had been during my presentation during meeting #2. I also ran over my own big toe with my office chair.

When I left work, I spotted an accident to my left, and did what I thought any sensible person would do: turned right. After all, either way led home, and it looked like I’d be taking the highway.

I pulled onto the entrance ramp, merged over a lane, and wondered for a brief moment if I should be worried about the flames I saw up ahead.

“There is a traffic delay in 200 feet,” Google Maps announced. “You are on the fastest route. You will arrive at your destination at 8:12 P.M.”

It was 4:30.

There was indeed a delay: a flatbed had merged into a van, and the resulting crash set the vehicle on fire. I put my car in park, waiting for the emergency crews to arrive. Listened to a Hit Parade podcast about Elton John. Listened to a Survivor podcast, a true crime podcast, and the complete A side of James Taylor’s Greatest Hits. Balanced my checkbook, called a friend to catch up, and wiped down the interior of my car with a semi-damp Handi-Wipe I found in the glove compartment.

During this time, traffic moved forward exactly one eighth of an inch.

I tweeted about how if anyone said anything bad about Survivor Joe in my presence I’d junk-punch them. Posted a Facebook update reminding people I was still alive (though, sadly, even though I’d been parked on the highway for half a day at this point, nobody had contacted me to express concern). Started reading the urban dictionary online so I could learn all the words the young folks use these days.

Finally--finally—traffic started moving again. I puttered on down the road, calculating how much time I’d have to make dinner before it was bedtime (seventeen minutes, by my estimation) . . . and found another accident, half a mile before my exit.

When I did make it home (well after dark), I extricated myself from the car, and found I’d somehow twisted my knee during my commute, quite possibly during my Handi-Wipe cleaning frenzy. It’s pretty bad: I’m sitting at work today wearing a knee brace and using a cane. My breakfast consisted of 1600 mg of Tylenol, and something for my stomach, because Tylenol does not react well with my digestive tract. And of course, I’ll be at SuperMegafest this weekend, standing on hard concrete for two days. Because that’s how the universe rolls.

Hopefully I’ll see you there, if I can see through the pain-tears. You know, I'll bet if you ask me about meeting Joe, it might make me feel better . . .

So author Rob Smales and I have been collaborating on a book, and we’ve both been writing about the collaboration process. You might want to read through these posts before continuing on:

Collaboration, Part 1 (Rob)
Collaboration, Part 1 (Stacey)
Collaboration, Part 2 (Rob)
Collaboration, Part 2 (Stacey)
Collaboration, Part 3 (Rob)

We’d figured out how to handle the process, got into our groove, and wrote. We had a blast, started really enjoying playing with our characters, and cracked each other up with every new chapter. But when it was all said and done, was it a book?

More importantly, were we still speaking?

Since we’re editing partners too, Rob and I have a good sense of each other’s schedules. I was able to carve out time to start reading the completed novel first, mostly because I’d asked him to take the lead on a manuscript that had just come in for S & L Editing, while I ran away clutching the pages of our collaboration cackling like a madwoman. I huddled in a corner of my office cave, red pen in hand, and started reading.

The first few chapters I could see where were trying to find our footing—or, more specifically, where Rob was stepping with purpose, while I stuck a toe in the water—and I out-and-out winced at one chapter I’d helmed that brought the pacing to a screeching halt (and was kind of a downer). I shot Rob a message that the chapter would need a rewrite. I sulked for a moment at my inability to get what I’d meant to convey in that scene into words on paper.

Then turned the page and kept going.

The book was funny and clever and hit all the key plot points we’d wanted it to. I found myself making notes like We had her do this here so we could have her do this other thing later—did we remember to do that? Only to find myself crossing off the note a few pages later, because yeah, between the two of us, we’d remembered. As I read, I forgot who wrote which scenes, completely immersed in the story. When I finished, I sent Rob a text:
I know this is going to be hard to believe, because between the two of us we don’t have a shred of self-confidence.

Rob responded with a simple question mark.

The book, I typed. I think . . . . I think this is really good. Like, really good.

A full minute passed before he responded. Really? Then: :)


My biggest worry, throughout the ten to twelve months we took writing and revising this novel, that at some point in the process we’d reach an impasse that would threaten to ruin our friendship. Rob is not only my go-to person when I’m struggling with something I’m writing and need to brainstorm, he’s also the best partner an editor could ask for. We often discuss books we’re reading, authors we admire, and confer about and debate anomalies in grammar we encounter. I didn’t want to lose any of these things over a novel. But there are two traits we share that turned into a successful partnership during this process: neither one of us has much confidence in our own work—which translated into no ego when it came to revision time—and we both really like to make people laugh. Our biggest obstacle, on the other hand, was that lack of confidence: our exchanges of Here’s the latest chapter, it might suck or Next installment headed your way; suspect I’ve reached new levels of suckitude, became almost laughable. (Almost. Seriously, I’m pretty sure we both need professional therapy.) It was the most fun I’ve ever had writing. Probably because we were going through all the normally solitary doubts and struggles together.

When Rob started reading our manuscript to make his own notes, he sent me a text: I think you’re right. This really is good.

Exciting, right? All that work and angst paid off, I sent back. Now when can we sit down to hammer out the outline for the second one?

Back in August 1989, my sister was home for the summer from college. I was working at the local pharmacy for maybe $3.25 an hour, while Kim toiled away as the receptionist for a hair salon for something like $4 an hour (a fortune at the time). We were sitting in our non-air-conditioned living room one humid afternoon, listening to each other sweat, when the radio station in the background announced they were giving away tickets to see Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers at Lake Compounce. Listeners had a chance to win every hour between 9 AM and 9 PM for the next three days.

I don’t know why we wanted to win those tickets. Neither one of us were huge Tom Petty fans, and his Alice in Wonderland video for “Don’t Come Around Here No More” quite frankly scared me a little. Perhaps it was dehydration from sweating so much. But in that moment, the Longo girls made it their mission to win those tickets.

You kids have no idea what it’s like to try and be the ninth caller in a home with one phone line and a rotary dial. We quickly devised a system in which, when we suspected they’d play the “Call in now!” jingle at any moment, we’d wait with all but the last number dialed, hovering over the rotary like two cats waiting to pounce on a hapless dust bunny. If they didn’t play the jingle, we had to hang up, wait a few minutes until the current song was about to end, and dial all but the last number again. I sat next to the phone, finger poised at the ready, when Kim had to work Saturday morning. She tagged me out Saturday afternoon so I could massage my severe finger cramp and head over to the pharmacy. Our mother, who had a strict rule about no TV or radio being on during meals, waived this commandment so we could listen in for that stupid jingle between bites of dinner. We called in every hour for thirty-six total hours over three days.

We did not win.

The concert was Thursday, August 31. Kim and I exchanged defeated glances—there may have been tears—and talked about maybe buying tickets, even though they were set at the astronomically high price of $27.50 each. Again, let me reiterate: neither one of us was an avid Tom Petty fan. And we hadn’t even heard of The Replacements, the band opening for him. But we’d wasted a lot of time dialing in for those tickets. Kim had sprained her index finger. I’d developed what would become a lifelong aversion to the telephone. We had to do something to justify wasting three days dialing, over and over, just to listen to a busy signal. So we bit the bullet and bought tickets.

And went to one of the best concerts of our lives.

The Replacements were quite possibly under the influence—I still remember the guitarist holding up a hand to ward off the stage lights and mumbling “I’m not feeling very pretty tonight” (incidentally, he died about five years later of an overdose, but at the time, we thought he was hilarious. Please remember we were pretty innocent, and someone being on, say, heroin, was absolutely foreign and unrecognizable to us). But their songs were catchy, we recognized at least one of them, and for all I’ve read of their reputation for atrocious stage antics in the years since, they were absolutely at peak performance levels that night.

Then Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers came on stage.

We knew all the songs, and he was so vibrant, larger-than-life, and high energy, it was impossible not to be elated—it’s the only word I can think of to describe how being at that concert felt, even twenty-eight years later—for the full seventy minutes he was on stage. I was no longer afraid of the scary Mad Hatter cartoon-looking man from “Don’t Come Around Here No More”—instead, we were watching a passionate, exuberant musician sing for us, and he clearly loved what he was doing.

Kim and I left that night—pausing to buy a concert tee before exiting—Tom Petty converts. The next day, we drove out to Record Breaker in Manchester to buy two cassettes: Don’t Tell a Soul by the Replacements, and Tom Petty’s Full Moon Fever. (As our savings were recently depleted by concert tickets, Kim bought one cassette, I bought the other, and we made copies for each other.) Full Moon Fever became the soundtrack to my autumn of 1989, interspersed with the Replacements and the Traveling Wilburys.

Over the years, Tom Petty’s voice consistently reminds me of being young, happy, and in the presence of someone who loved what he did. He makes me think of rocking out with my big sister on the lawn of Lake Compounce, and how every dime of that $27.50 was worth the finger cramps of not winning.

To have all those wonderful feelings of elation conjured up by one arguably raspy voice has been a gift. When my sister texted me Monday night to ask if I’d heard the news, it was fitting she and I should share that Tom Petty moment, too. I pulled on my old concert tee, got under the blankets, and thumbed up Full Moon Fever in my iTunes library.

Hit play. Closed my eyes and let myself feel every emotion Tom Petty’s voice has ever conjured up for me.
​
And smiled.