"bear" with me

My husband said to me, "You have that annoying writing style that girls like." I'm probably holding this against him forever.

In other news, the 24th was my mom's birthday. My grandmother died of cancer on my mom's birthday, and now my mom has cancer and it's her birthday. Weird. I got her this Wonder Woman mug:

It's probably a crappy gift, but what kind of gift do you give somebody with cancer that doesn't beg the question, "Remember how you have cancer?"  This is really selfish of me, but I just couldn't go the ribbon route, even though she would have probably liked it. She likes that kind of symbolism.

I hate ribbons. I know in actuality they're just a means of showing support for people in a bad situation, and I respect that, and I don't begrudge all the ribbon lovers out there whatsoever, but in the reptile part of my brain I've always felt that ribbons are society's way of gift wrapping a piece of poop. You're in the military, you might get killed horribly, here's a ribbon. Hey, you have AIDS, that sucks, here's a ribbon. And then society goes home, and you're left with a piece of poop with a ribbon on it that now also smells like poop. I just think that as a collective we should have chosen something more manly and awesome to represent commitment to a cause. A gun, perhaps, or a bear. Not a teddy bear, an actual bear. If I get cancer I want a bear.

A bear:

My mom told me the best thing I could do for her is to take care of my boobs, except she used about a million more words, none of which were "boobs". Someone you love having cancer is really crappy news, so afterwards I was flinging out all kinds of psychological bait in hopes of reeling in some control over the uncontrollable. I wrote a preachy status update on Facebook and called the doctor to inquire about my boob health the next day. The doctor said in situations like mine, the best thing is to get genetic testing done to see if you have the boob cancer gene. If you have it, you should get a mastectomy by 35. LOL OMFG. Not happening. Roly and Poly (I just named them that this second) are staying firmly affixed to my body.

Given my personality, I cannot know I have the boob cancer gene. I would have constant anxiety about suddenly having contracted cancer until it would actually give me cancer. I would be at the grocery store going, crap, did I just get cancer? In the parking lot: Now? Getting a haircut: What about now?

However, I did think of one advantage to having a mastectomy at a young age: new fake boobs. I've wondered how people would react if I got fake boobs for cosmetic reasons, especially at work. Like, who would be the one to point it out? Would they ask if I had been working out, or wait for an informal discussion wherein they could be more direct? But with a mastectomy no one could judge me! No one could judge CANCER BOOBS without being a huge douche! I would be all about the cancer boobs. I would tell everybody I was getting new double d cancer boobs, and afterwards I would go to work in just a bra (and pants, I guess) just to see if anyone would challenge me.

You will not defeat my cancer boobs.

Who moved my cheese?

I went to a party thrown in honor of the Michigan/Michigan State game. I don't like football and was feeling particularly introverted, but I find I can mask these traits by getting really drunk.

Boy, did I (get drunk, that is). My liver is still looking for a place to die, and my brain was hopeless for the rest of the weekend. I took a shower and forgot to wash my hair on Sunday, and tried to open the front door with my key fob repeatedly, so I feel confident in saying I'm significantly stupider for the game. Thank you and fuck you, Big Ten Football. I did have fun, though. I'm a fun drunk asshole, ask anyone!

Anyway, it strikes me that this is the kind of thing that would get a lot of "likes" had I posted an abbreviated version on Facebook. Hey world, I'm dumb, it's so hilarious.

Blogs are more difficult, especially being that this one is public. I can't go into detail about the time I spend whoring and drinking, or my secret life as traveling puppeteer. I can't talk about people who annoy me because they might read it; I can't talk about work because I might get fired, and I can't post risque photos because my arch-nemesis (this is true) would probably take a screen shot and post it all over town with a "for an STD call [my number]" note attached, or something. Plus I have muffin top, a little bit. Anyway, this is all to say I have nothing left to talk about except for my stupid feelings.

I feel a total social disconnect when it comes to sports, particularly football. Most other sports I can enjoy for a period of time before I wind up immersed in an elaborate daydream, but not football. Michigan can marry Ohio State and name their baby Notre Dame for all I care.

I think I've developed sort of an elitist reputation, like I'm too good for sports, or too good for people who like sports, because unless I'm hammered I do tend to retreat from the crowd and find a cat to pet. I wish this didn't happen, because it inspires people to ask me what's wrong, or what's on my mind, and...well, ok, very rarely it is "I hate every single thing about this situation." But mainly it's along the lines of "I wish I had a dog so I could dress him as a banana for Halloween. I want a taco. Leonardo DiCaprio is aging kind of weird. I should have got that necklace at the flea market. I like to look at pictures of baby goats. Crap, I'm out of cheese." These are not the thoughts of someone who thinks sports are beneath her. They are merely the thoughts of somebody who isn't paying attention, and is crazy.

Remember: it's not you, it's my raging untreated ADHD.

When I was a little, little girl, my dad took me to a Michigan football game. I liked the popcorn, the cheerleaders, and the half-time show.

Oh, Football. We'll always have the memories.

When Boobs go Rogue

My mother revels in sharing family medical information. I don't think it's a gossip thing. It's just that I'm a grown-up now, and I'm boring. She doesn't need to worry about me having unprotected sex on top of a bed of used syringes and unfinished homework. I'm married off, I have a job, I have a capable, if unused reproductive system. With the exception of my stint as a high-class call girl in Iceland, I'm a somewhat functional member of society.

So, Project Daughter was shelved and sealed and left to gather dust next to Project Grandchild, and her unofficial job became to serve as an ambassador for all of the aches and pains in the Cooper and ex-Axelrod clans. Needing a cause is a family trait. She talks in the style of the books she reads, and believe me, I know how those books read, because as a quietly rebellious tween I stole all of them so I could read the sex parts, and I specifically remember it was impossible to learn anything until at least page 200. Eventually she traded in romance for gentle, descriptive fiction that ends with a Christmas miracle. Anyway, she talks like her books. I think she thinks if she describes things really well, she's stacking the odds in favor of a happy ending.

My preferred literary style is geared towards heroines kicking ass in a post-apocalyptic hellhole, but it means something to her to wax poetically about poor uncle so-and-so's prostate, so I try to keep my ADHD in check and not think too hard about the fact that I'll have to make an effort not to look at uncle so-and-so's problematic crotch at Thanksgiving.

My stomach dropped when she left me a voicemail and a text asking to meet with me in person. Much like the 3A.M. phone call, "we need to talk" usually means somebody's dying, somebody's breaking up, or you got swindled out of the family fortune (I watch a lot of TV). My mom is 65, so I was relatively certain she wasn't pregnant, and given the cancer history in my family, I just...I knew. We are a weird family that doesn't particularly get along or understand each other, but I don't take well to them being fucked with, nor they with me. It took a millisecond for my rage-y side to take over. I knew it wouldn't have served a purpose to hulk out, so I submitted to my mother's incredibly detailed description of every MRI and poke and prod and oncologist and radiologist, and what this machine looked like, and how there was a tube that had to be inserted just so, and an awkward pillow where they squish your head to take a boob x-ray, and on and on and on, the whole time knowing that the punchline was cancer. I want my mom to set up her quest and her miracle in her way. I know it's about her, not me. But I still want to grab an axe and watch the villainous boob cells scatter before me.

Scales and Tales

“A pretty girl picks a flower. A bee returns to where the flower used to be, sees that it’s gone, gets mad, and stings a man with a red beard. The man with the red beard doesn’t look where he’s going and bumps into a lady in curlers holding two bags of groceries. The groceries fall all over the sidewalk and the man with the red beard and several friendly neighbors all help the lady in curlers pick everything up. Angeline might see everybody picking up the groceries and say, “Look, a pretty girl with a flower.” 

She was in balance with the whole. 

The whole is everything and everything is part of the whole. Before everybody’s born they are in balance with the whole. After they’re born, most people lose their balance. Angeline didn’t.”

I related so hard to Someday, Angeline as a kid because I related to any book about awkward only children with no friends and overactive imaginations. Back then, I thought I was in balance with the whole like Angeline was. Put me in a classroom with all of its social complexities and fresh starts and pencil shavings, and I would see the teacher preparing to shape young minds. But I was 9, and like most 9-year-olds, I was an egomaniac. I’m not the precocious child who sees a pretty girl with a flower setting off a chain of events -- I’m the bee who got pollen-blocked.  As I’m not so impulsive to waste my life stinging a ginger with groceries, I would probably have settled with thinking bad thoughts about that pretty girl, and hoped that they stung, somehow, because pretty girls get tons of flowers all of the time, and I just wanted the one. 

I – that is to say, Girl Me, not Bee Me –begun writing privately about how much all the other kids in the class sucked before it became cool to be a chick with a diary in the 80s. At first my diary entries were straight-up lists: I hate Bree. I hate Jackie. I HATE Melanie.  Eventually they became small, bitchy cries for justice, and I would like to think they mated in the land of the small and the bitchy, and eventually gave birth to Twitter, because I’m just one in a long line of bitches with nothing in the way of an authoritative presence and a need for attention. But I'm not bitter. I don't want revenge, anymore. I just want to sneak in and even the scales.