Ups and downs, highs and lows - my life has seemed like a rollercoaster ride of late. Not a gigantic, body-wrenching, stomach-heaving, feels-like-you're-going-to-puke-your-guts-out monstrosity, but one of the coasters that is supposedly fun for all ages. In actuality, my life has been fine, its my emotions that have been at the amusement park. And who says women are the only ones who suffer from these cyclical emotional peaks and valleys.

I'm not entirely sure why I've been feeling this way either. Nothing terrible or extreme has befallen me or my family. My identity hasn't been stolen by some internet hacker. I haven't been harassed more than my usual quota of telemarketers.

The only thing I can think of is that I haven't been sleeping very well as of late, and that somehow has carried over into my emotional not-so-well-being. That or the fact that I feel some men go through something like PMS. Of course we don't have the messiness or embarassment that women have to suffer through, but then again, we can't blame our actions/moods/emotions on male-PMS. Can you just see it?

Me: "I'm sorry boss, I didn't mean to bite that client's head off and chide him for his ignorance. It must be 'that time of the month again.'"

Boss: "What are you doing thinking you can get away with blaming this on your wife? I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to let you go..." <hands me my pink slip>

My sleep the last few nights has been filled with very vivid dreams of going (back?) to college, playing in the World Cup, and being involved in some B-rate Mortal Kombatesque movie where the blood, gore, weapons and bullets were real. Were all of those dreams stressful? You bet they were. And somehow because of that, my slumber hasn't exactly been relaxing or rejuvenating. In fact, I think sleep filled with dreams of that nature is worse than being awake.

The college dream was so vivid that I could picture exactly what my dorm room looked like, complete with my luggage and things from when I moved in on day one. I even remember quite distinctly going out on a boat ride with a bunch of other new students as part of the orientation session.

Within my action movie dream, I dreamt I somehow survived the first round, and then in the second round I was matched up against a mandolin player. For those of you who remember "The Game" from Piers Anthony's Adept series, this will sound familiar. We had to play a duet and then a panel of judges would rate us based not only on our musical ability, but how well we complemented the other competitor, and how well we enhanced the musical piece we were playing. I guess I should have been grateful that it was something like that, and not some fight-to-the-death cage match against John Claude vanWuss. The strangest part of the whole dream (if any of it can be called "normal") was that not only was I playing a mandolin, it was a mandolin the size of my palm, and I was playing it by holding it under my chin like you hold a violin. I actually was holding this teeny tiny instrument under my chin and plucking away at the strings. I sure would like to know what *that* means, Dr. Every-Dream-Has-Some-Meaning.

When I get into these emotional lulls, I get on a train of thought that just gets progressively worse. I start feeling bad about myself, which eventually leads to thinking about the pitiful state of our finances (which isn't *that* bad compared to most, but definitely could be much better), comparing myself to other seemingly more "successful" friends, yada yada yada. When I get to that point, "If Only" becomes a *real* good friend of mine, and I wonder when I'll finally get to own that brand-new car, or afford that $200,000 house.

It usually takes some gentle reminders (ok, or not so gentle emails) from one of my friends to tell me what I *do* have and smack me back to reality. I'm sorry, but they don't make any drugs for men who suffer from this PMS-like condition - none that I know of anyway. And this male cycle of PMS (or whatever you call it) seems to reoccur in my case every 3-4 months. It seems like there's a period of a week or so every 3-4 months where I have no energy, no motivation, where my emotions get all wacked, and all I want to do is sleep. I seem to be more on edge, less patient with Jen and the Kiddos, and easily annoyed. Doesn't that sound like PMS to you? Like I said before, just like PMS but without the actual mess.

Thank goodness this week is almost over. Whereas I've been slowly getting accustomed to dealing with Jen during her monthly cycle, and now at the point where I realize that I just need to be extra sensitive and compassionate during that time, and anything she may be annoyed at me with is mostly a symptom of her wacked out emotions, I haven't quite gotten a handle on my male PMS and wacked out emotions.

At least I don't get all bloated and have strange cravings. Now *that* could prove to be problematic while watching football with Da Guys.