TEE GEE EYE EFF (or hip-hop hot flashes)

It’s seven pee em Friday

It’s seventeen degrees (Fahrenheit)

I ain’t got no jacket

And no jacket ain’t got me.

I’m standing in the snow

With no shoes on my feet

And you might be asking yourself, “how the fuck can she stand out there with no damn shoes and socks on in the middle of a snowstorm in her pajamas?”

And to you, I say, “mind ya binnes. I’m having a hot flash.”

Actual footage of me standing barefoot in the snow

And honestly, even if I wasn’t having a hot flash, I still would have been outside dancing in the snow because there is something about the way that cold powder feels on the bottom of my feet that soothes me. It brings me the type of joy I can’t explain.

But when I’m having a hot flash… it brings me the illusion of relief. Because, let’s face it, hot flashes come from within. I don’t know about you, but my hot flashes start at the back of my neck and just… burn. And when I say, “burn,” I mean just that. Sometimes it burns like someone startled my mama while she was hot combing my hair in the kitchen. It burns like someone scraped sandpaper across the back of my neck and then rubbed me down with hot sauce instead of lotion.

Then it fans out across my shoulders, underneath my arms, across my tig ol biddies, down my back, and around my torso at the same damn time. Sometimes I sweat profusely. Sometimes I sweat a little. Sometimes I don’t sweat at all.

But always… ALWAYS, I feel… funky.

Now, let me make this clear… I DO NOT STINK… but I sweat so much that I FEEL like I stink.  

I know a lot of women are on that healthy kick where they only wear natural deodorant, or they don’t wear deodorant at all. (It has to do with the dangers of aluminum in the deodorant.) I, myself, wear natural deodorant, homemade by a friend of mine.

But, one day, my friend, Cheril, made a post on Facebook and I probably laughed harder than I should have. She said, and I quote, “some of y’all need the aluminum.”

And I don’t know why I had the nerve to be so tickled… not with all the pit checks I’d been doing lately. Now, I don’t wanna say I need the aluminum because, obviously… aluminum is bad… but I need some kind of intervention because I am sweating so much, I’ve become overly paranoid about being funky!

A friend of mine suggested chlorophyll drops. Another friend suggested chlorophyll gummies… and the gummies were on sale so… Apparently, chlorophyll controls body odor… from the inside out. Now, listen. I don’t know if it’s true, but that’s what the natural deodorant girlies are telling me, so, I’m gonna try it.

I’ll let you know how it turns out.