August 3, 2008
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Weirdness
So I’ve been reasonably keeping it together in ‘real life’ (you, know the place where people SEE your face). I go out for drives and blubber all over the steering wheel so that when I come back, I’ve gotten it all out of my system and I can crap all over the kids for leaving their bikes in the driveway with a clear conscience that their little lives have not changed.
The cafeteria lady at the girls’ school hugged me hard, and then prayed over my head this long and mostly unintelligible prayer about “lifting me up to Jeebus”. Well Jeebus better be a Bulgarian weight-lifter cos that’s the only way I will get lifted anywhere. The whole time she was doing it (and it was a loooooong prayer) I kept thinking I was in an episode of the Simpsons.
There is not one decent skull cap or beanie out there unless you are a surfie dude, or an old lady. I don’t want to wear a cap advertising someone’s surf wax, nor do I want to wear a tea cosy. I just want some kick-ass stuff to cover my head with — obviously too much to ask. I am thinking this is a career opportunity for my one-boobed self later on. Nobody steal this idea unless you send me a freebie first.
I swiped my ‘Cancer Card’ yesterday at the cosmetics counter. My favourite MAC lippie broke when it got stuck under the brake pedal in the car, and I thought I’d treat myself to a new one (hey, I have CANCER, right?). So the lady with the heap o’stuff on her face is going on and on and ON about which one I should have. Hard sell, Hard sell, blah blah blah. And THEN she said (get this), “well THAT one will really go lovely with your hair”. And I said really snottily (because I was tired and who cares that much about lipstick anyway but cosmetic ladies) “well, I am going for CHEMO on Wednesday so I won’t HAVE any HAIR so it doesn’t MATTER“. And she felt so bad, she gave me the other lipstick for free.
I know this was a bad bad bad thing to do, but I feel far less repentant than I should. Move over on that bench in hell people, cos ya better save me some space.
Everyone is talking to me in this ‘Days of our Lives’ voice. Very.Slowly.Softly. I have not gone deaf, just malignant.
Comments (26)
Lu, I’ll knit you something, if you want. Look at knitty.com, they have lots of cool stuff. Not ugly beanies and such. Let me know, I’d be glad to.
I hope you got good lipstick colors. Desire is my favorite. My perfect everyday color.
Here’s the link: http://knitty.com/archiveHEADS.html.
i’ll make you something if you want. i was just looking on etsy yesterday at surgical caps (some nitwit is trying to FORCE me to make her some) so go look there and see if there’s anything you like. mostly variations on the do-rag if you know what i mean. but maybe with some snazzy fabric a definite step up from surfer dude or tea cosy.
??
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?ref=sr_list_18&listing_id=13548735
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?ref=vl_other_1&listing_id=13383783
I’m reading a biography of Louisa May Alcott right now (new one = just won Pulitzer) and last night I came upon the story of how she suffered for months from delusions and fevers due to typhoid and the “cure” for it, which was mercury poisoning! Anyway, because she had to have care around the clock, the doctors shaved her head for convenience – when she finally came out of it and discovered her missing hair she was so angry because she always thought her hair was her “one beauty”… but then she got over it and mused in her journal, “Never mind, it might have been my head, and a wig outside is better than a loss of wits inside.”
You will always have your wits!
I don’t know if LMA ever wore a wig. But I’m sure she would have worn one of princess_smartypants’ snazzy head coverings.
You do know that Your Kind of Funny is the only Brand on the Market I’ll buy… Good day to You, XOXOXO!
@AnxietyZone - I checked out each and every hat. All are pretty cool but these are my faves (in order):
http://knitty.com/ISSUEsummer05/PATTtychus.html
http://knitty.com/ISSUEsummer05/PATTpinky.html
http://knitty.com/ISSUEwinter04/PATTperuvian.html
http://knitty.com/ISSUEsummer06/PATThalfdome.html
If you’d knit me one in loud vulgar brash colours (ignore their colours) I’d be ever so grateful. It needs to be in cotton or something lightweight so my scalp doesn’t itch and because it will be summer here soon.
Pick whichever you choose, I can’t knit at ALL and figure they all look really hard to do. They are all so great. (and now I am teary).
@princess_smartypants - all the etsy hats ROCK. If you’d make me one, that would be EXCELLENT. Especially with your flair for fabrics. Think you could find something retro/kitch/sarcastic?
MWAH darling.
@DrTiff - LMA’s autobiography sounds like a ‘must read;. I think I will have a wander and look for it, this arvo after my echocardiogram. This line “Never mind, it might have been my head, and a wig outside is better than a loss of wits inside.” is something I am going to remember when it gets tough.
@Libbyl0u - G’day to you too. Glad you ‘get’ me. So many don’t. xxx
It’s called “Eden’s Outcasts” by John Matteson…
Cool, I’m on it! Tell me your favorite colors, and I’ll combine them in garish ways! And lots of soft cotton, of course.
Oh, do you have a large or average head size? I have a fairly large noggin myself, an I didn’t want to assume you did too.
do you find skulls & crossbones too morbid?……..
@princess_smartypants - I find Skull and Crossbones PERFECT. I even suggested it to an aquaintance who was suitably horrified… HAH
@AnxietyZone - Large head for my large brain. And my favourite colours are black, iris blue, and scarlet for the woman that I long to be. xx
Do you like this one too? http://blog.oregonlive.com/knitting/2007/12/medium_odessaback.jpg I think it would look really cool in the colors you like. No pink or anything. Maybe I could find skull beads or something else wicked for it.
I loved your verbal exchange with the sales clerk.
The day I went to work after finding out Marvis’s diagnosis, I found it rather difficult to treat with the respect the asshole customers who were out drinking and gambling at the casino where I manned the craps table. I held my tongue because I had to, but it wasn’t easy. Would that I had been the customer instead of the employee. That would have been something to hear and see.
@AnxietyZone - I LOVE that one. I can totally see it surrounding me ‘ead! And skull beads or anything else that grabs your fancy — what YOU like, cos you’ve got good taste. yippee!
Cool. We have a huge bead store in town, and I’ll check it out!
My mammogram went well. I didn’t realize one could smash my boobs out that far. Yikes!
I hope all is going well. Or at least you’re getting pampered this week. Or maybe someone gave you a Cadbury fruit and nut.
@AnxietyZone - I am glad it went great. I think they smushed my boobs to China and back. xxx
Bleah. I got a letter that the results are wonky and I have to have it all done again. They swear it’s probably nothing. I hate the worry and the though I have to have it done all over again.
Sparks here. Been thinking of you, Stressie, but I’ve been out of town lots.
I wrote a novella over at that other place you started on the thread you started, but I don’t know if you’ve been back.
Anyway, I had surgery for thyroid cancer back in December (fuck December, I say) and so I’ve been wearing scarves to work every day since, including warm summer days (lucky, very few hot hot days this summer). I’ve had friends wear scarves over their bare heads; maybe that’d be something to look into? I have a favorite summer one that’s like gossamer or spider webs or something, I can hardly feel it when I wear it. I’d be happy to go back and see if they have the other one left, and send it to you. But it doesn’t come in Cynical or Deep Sarcastic — only a pale pink that fades to melon. A bit femmy for me, but hey, I got desperate when it got hot.
@AnxietyZone - Oh fucketty. Well beats waiting until your tit has its own postcode. At least you know that whatever is wonky, its either minor or really REALLY early. I waited until I could decapitate grown men with one quick sideways lurch before I went and got mine. XXXXX
@sparksgalore - Oh Sparky. how lovely to hear from you, how sorry I am that you’ve been going down the same horrible path. It’s all so confronting, isn’t it?
@stressmagnet - I wouldn’t say it was the same horrible path. I was what they call “lucky,” meaning that the kind of thyroid cancer I had is about the most treatable cancer there is. Yay! I win! But still I had major surgery, with six months of a Frankenstein scar around my neck (it’s suddenly gotten almost invisible now, 8 mo later) and lots of pain during recovery (thanks to the surgeon who, in not wanting to cut my nerves and make my neck numb for the rest of my life, stretched them and made them very angry for a couple of months), followed by radioactive iodine treatment (nausea, can’t be around children for 5 days, fucks up your (well, my) salivary glands so I have chronic pain there now, had to be off thyroid meds for something like 5 weeks so I walked around like a zombie for that time). A friend of mine who is 10 years into stage IV breast cancer says the cancer doesn’t make her sick but the treatment does. But if I had to join this club, I’m glad it’s been manageable, and also, NOT when my kids were, say 1 and 4.
But yes, confronting, yes. I tell you, I walk around every day figuring, hmmm, if I live another 10 years, will my children both be adults by then? Even though this cancer isn’t likely to kill me, I’m just so much more in touch with my fragility in this world.