Menopause sucks. They tell you about the hot flashes, night sweats, and mood swings, but they never tell you about the truly horrible part of menopause: noun loss. Ever since I started through "the change," I've been losing my nouns. I'll be talking away, using verbs, articles, adjectives and adverbs with ease, then I'll come upon a noun and be totally stumped. Especially proper nouns. Names? Ha! Forget it. And what's that small black thing in my front yard the postman stuffs with bills and magazines?
Not a clue. I know exactly what it is, but can't for the life of me figure out what it's called.
When I told my doctor about the problem, she laughed. She said a lot of women go through menopause and realize they're having a problem with their memory, but only a writer would identify the part of speech we lose. She promises me it's not dementia, not a sign of incipient Alzheimer's. No, it's simply menopause. My friends laughed, too, until it began happening to them as well. Who knew hormones could mess up your brain so much?
Wait. Hormones screwing with my brain? Oh, yeah. I've been there before...I forgot about puberty. Well, I didn't actually forget. I remember it very clearly (no nouns involved, you see). So, when Denise Little asked me to write a fantasy short story for the Witch High anthology, about a special high school that catered to witches, I said yes. Who doesn't remember high school and the whole gamut of emotions that go along with that?
In my story, "Chemistry 101," fire witch Kenina Bailey is gearing up her courage to ask her chemistry lab partner to the Sadie Hawkins dance—he's a total hottie, even for a water witch. But when a blaze breaks out in the lab, the water witches accuse her and call for her expulsion. How can she clear her name and find a date for the dance?
Luckily, my noun loss problem isn't visible to my readers. If I have a problem remembering one, I can always come back later to fill it in and no one is the wiser. But make me feel better, will ya? Tell me it happens to you, too. If it doesn't, I'm not sure I want to know.
While I'm waiting for your comments, I'll take a break and see if I have anything to drink in the...uh, oh crap, you know--that big white thing in the kitchen that keeps food cold....
Pamela Luzier -- Visit Pam's website
