This is the Thing...

My hair has been "my thing" for most of my adult life. When I was a kid, my mother cut it short. I had gorgeous, silky blond hair...but I was never allowed to let it grow. My sister...yes. Me, no. You know how in some families, one kid gets scapegoated? Well, heck, that was me. I was a weirdo from day one...too sensitive for most of my White Trash, beer swilling, loud mouthed family and my mother, being one of the most sadistic, abusive cunts I've ever had the misfortune to know, derived a great deal of enjoyment in making sure I looked (and felt) as ugly as she thought she was. Ok, so yeah, I've still got a wee bit of bitterness tucked away. The logic behind all her bitch ass bitchery was that I looked very much like my Auntie, who was the town beauty and who got all the attention. My mother, who actually isn't really that ugly, still had to fuck for attention. Hence, three kids by the time she was 19, unmarried, miserable, and eventually, an alchy part-time prostitute. With a beautiful daughter that she routinely punched in the face and forced to dress like a boy.

I digress. Sorry folks.

The point of that rant was that now, I am in my 40s. I wear dresses (that I make myself) and had waist length hair, still blond (with just a teensy bit of help), and so fucking pretty I would spend hours brushing it, braiding it, girling it up, etc. I wanted to look like the Princess that I wanted to be as a child...and frankly, I DID. Princess hair, Princess clothes. I was Princess all the way. I still have more hair products in my bathroom than that of a thousand Drag Queens. What a funny kind of rebellion. "Dear mother, I'll show you who's boss! I'll wear a dress! See that? Do ya??!"

Alas, I get to keep the dresses. The hair, however, is now in the hands of Locks of Love.

My oncologist told me that the chemo I'd be receiving would render me hairless in less than two weeks. I cried over it. I bemoaned that that twist of fate. Then...I said to myself, "FUCK this."

I had to think seriously about what defines me. How long can this "I feel pretty...oh so pretty" rebellion really go on? I had to think about it without the bullshit soul-searchy, dumb ass book (that gets made into a movie starring Julia Roberts) kind of way.

So, ok. Cancer might kill me. I accept that as a possibility. But I will not go down without a fight. Fighting means becoming (yes, it sounds cliche) a Warrior. I will look the part (I'm method that way).

So. Tuesday morning, exactly one week after my 43'd birthday, one of my oldest and dearest friends (Tomm) shaved my head at my request. Later that afternoon, I was surrounded by a throng of women (all friends and Warriors all in their own way) at Acme Bodyart where I had a dragon tattooed on my now hairless head, another tattoo on my arm, and a piercing in my upper left ear. Everything except the scalp tattoo was fairly painless. The scalp pain...was beyond anything I'd ever experienced. The artist (Dusty Palmer...who is a wonderfully brilliant inkster) was wonderfully supportive, stopped and re-started when I needed a break...and talked me through everything. He even said that I was a beast due to the amount of pain that I was enduring in relative silence. I've never been called a beast in my life! I'm a delicate sort of gal. Really little...I need help lifting a bag of cat food! And now I'm a beast! I loved it! I could spend hours writing about how positive and professional an experience it was...but I think I've written enough for now.

I feel fairly odd. My body...has been modified inside and out this week.

On an "up" note...I have gotten a gazillion compliments on the tattoo...from (get this) OLD ladies! They love it! I thought they'd be afraid but they all seem to think it's a hoot.

Cancer ladies, I hope you'll consider the non-wig, scalp tattoo as an option. I feel (and look) like a total badass. I loved my hair but losing it did not make me feel like the victim my mother tried to create. It made me the Bitch who isn't afraid of her OR of cancer. Fuck 'em both. Fuck 'em right in the ear.

Irony

I have cancer. Big, fat, donkey fucking cancer.

Yep. Finding out you have cancer during breast cancer awareness month (not to mention a few days before your birthday) is a total goddamned pain in the ass. Turn any which way and it's all about cancer. Cancer for dinner, cancer for lunch. Cancer coming out my ass. Actually, it's coming out my tits but that's neither here nor there. I've had this shit for TWO years before I knew about it. All I knew is that I was always exhausted. I thought that's just what happens when people get older. Alas, not so much. It's what happens when your jiggly bits go mitotic. So if posts are even more sporadic than usual (which, let's be honest, I'm not a constantly posting motherfucker, motherfucker)it's because I'm trying to stay alive.

I've given a lot of thought about what kind of Cancer Chick I'm going to be. First off, NO wigs. Once the hair starts to go, I'm shaving my head and tattooing it. I thought my head shaving days were long gone. Shaving your head in my twenties and during the nineties is...well, not that unusual. In my 40s...it's just kinda lame. Unless you have cancer, in which case, it's mandatory. So I'll be head-shaved, tattoo Cancer Chick for now. I'll keep everyone updated on any further ancillary Cancer Chick fauna that I attach.

I can't help but make a lot of jokes about it because it's so surreal for now. But I don't want to be "funny" Cancer Chick because she's always the one who dies first in those Lifetime movies. I'm gonna be sardonic for now. Again, updates as things evolve/progress.

P.S. Yes, this does suck.

Cérémonie

I've been on an obsessive Sofia Coppola train for the past couple of weeks. I've finally decided, after having watched "Marie Antoinette" for the second time in six hours, that the next person who rags on her to me will be the unfortunate victim of a bitch slap.

Seamlessly meshing of my most cherished songs (Ceremony) with the Palace of Versailles...makes me hope that someone tongue-kisses her every single day.

Get On Board

Meet Andrew Bowen. He has decided to investigate this thing we call "religion" from the inside out, spending an entire year immersed in one religion per month. What a full-on, badass thing to do.

Then again, you might wonder why a guy in his right mind would do this. Actually, the answer to that is rather paradoxical (or at least I think it is, I'm not in his head). ONLY a person in their right mind does this.

If you read his blog from the beginning, he journals his days as he is living within the boundaries of the religion he is practicing that month. Right down to the food they (he being part of "them") eat. We (the batshit masses) can then read what he has to say and chill the fuck out the next time we sit next to a Muslim on an airplane or a Christian at a Planned Parenthood.

Juan Williams, are you listening?

Lots of countries insist that its citizens earn their right to live there. Civil service, a year in the army, or some other such hoo-ha. Since the United States is such a "melting pot" (yes I did type that with a cynical smirk), I think Andrew's mission is probably one that wouldn't kill the rest of us to try. 12 months learning that the other guy isn't going to kill us in our sleep? I think that'd be swell indeed.

Bowen calls this mission "Project Conversion: Twelve Months of Spiritual Promiscuity". I call it fucking awesome.

Monkeys with Car Keys

"All we are, basically, are monkeys with car keys."
-Northern Exposure (1990)

I read (and so should you) a great essay this week. It's all about the film (and philosophy behind) I Heart Huckabees. It's a nicely honed, much less expletive laced (than anything I am capable of producing) way of explaining (what I call) Transcendental Nihilism.

It turns out, a lot of people think this way, though they might not call it the same thing. I'd be worried about being unoriginal if, at this point, I believed it was possible to be interconnected (and I am very certain we all are) and "original". The thing is y'all, we think the same thoughts, often at the same time, but for many different reasons. Our different reasons are usually just by-products of our different experiences. Our different experiences and the cortical pruning that happens as a result, make us who we are. But, as Woody Allen's Grandma said in the classic "Northern Exposure", we're still just monkeys with car keys...sitting on the branches of infinity, chittering subconsciously into our stomach-ears.

I continue to arrive (like I said a couple of posts ago) at the same conclusion: many of our woes are caused by separation anxiety caused by the illusion that we can actually disconnect from one another. At this point, I don't even bother trying, other than earplugs.

Interdependence. It's what makes being life such a fucking hay ride. That, of course, and NyQuil.

Yes, I know I've been wearing Bossy Pants this week. I like to share fun where I find it.

Happy Mewes Year

More "If you haven't, you should" advice for the New Year: tune in to the Kevin Smith/Jason Mewes Jay and Silent Bob Get Old podcast. Each of the first ten or so, if nothing else.

Beware: this isn't your run-of-the-mill Jay and Silent Bob tale. The stories you'll hear aptly illustrate the similarities and vast differences in the lives of the real vs. film versions of both men. This isn't just what happens when Jay and Silent Bob get old. It's what happens when Jay (Jason Mewes) has a 10+ year struggle with heroin addiction, Smith's unwavering faith and loyalty to his friend (and arguably, his soul-mate), and the cast of characters surrounding them both. If the two of them ever decide to make a film based on their twisty turn down Hubert Selby Jr. Lane, it may finally get Smith the writing accolades he has so deserved for so long.

As far as the cast of characters goes, Smith's wife Jen stands out in his stories, as she did in his Too Fat to Fly tale, as the voice of reason. Sensible and supportive, she is the rare individual with a steely backbone of kindness. I think I might be somewhat in love with her too.

The great thing about this podcast is that it doesn't gloss over the illness but somehow keeps you laughing. It's difficult to put into words how rare it is to be able to grasp that level of desperation when you're trying not to spray your shorts. Or panties, in my case.

It's not child friendly. Dirty, in a John Waters kind of way (yes, you'll hear dick and fart jokes aplenty, very graphic and very descriptive) but I'd think you'd expect that by now. For all us who have been with these guys since Clerks., it'll feel like a surreal high-school reunion.

Rapt in Plastic

If the cut of your gib is to make plans to do something different from year-to-year starting from the beginning (it's the time of year for that sort of planning, y'know), consider watching the films of David Lynch. Seriously, it's a gift I gave myself years ago and I've never regretted a moment spent with him.

The only man I've ever known (through his art, of course) who actually seems to possess a modicum of compassion and understanding for self-destructive women. He really should be teaching philosophy.

Uber Alles Doesn't Live Here Anymore

It's official...I've given up hope that my iPod will ever return to me. The last time I saw it, it was swimming in a drawer full of pens and markers. Earbuds are rare creatures in this universe: they carry a special, viral kind of entropy, enabling them to become entangled like christmas tree lights into even the most pristine, uncomplicated environment. The last time I saw them and all my DK bootleg tracks, they were nestled in the back of a dusty drawer. One I thought I could pillage at my leisure.

My poor neighbors. Every day is Dias de los Muertos Kennedys when you have a treadmill and desk speakers.

And happy hour is now enforced by law.

White Girl's Blues

Portishead's live DVD, watching Lynch films over and over, and re-reading "The Stranger" have provided a scratchy, newsreely kind of backdrop for the past couple of weeks.

This, plus many cups of Earl Grey tea with Irish whiskey, gives me the weekend, Chelsea Hotel taste of a rough patch in life that I'm just getting over. A receding wave and the relieved feeling that marries me to it: no matter how bad things get, I'll never know what it's like to be ordinary. It makes ordinary people look a lot smaller...like the insects they always were, temporarily made bigger by the light they were blocking.

Finally, the end of a year of trying to see my reflection in the dusty carapace of an annoying insect (or a series of them). When faced with the silent glare at the end of that kind of buzzing futility, I tend to seek comfort in the things I forgot to love.

Twin Peaks

Portishead (Click the link at the beginning of this post for a glimpse)

The Stranger (Matthew Ward's translation)

GodotNuts

Lately, I have a bad week, and then I hear great news that doesn’t seem to have much to do with me personally but helps to restore my faith in humanity. Having even a tiny ray of hope keeps me going most of the time. So I start feeling better and come back to the conclusion (I've been here many times before) that it’s always personal. We try to tell ourselves it isn’t but that’s just cultural and religious wheel spinning. Blow people up, make them into saints and movie stars, it’s all just a big, futile attempt at trying to disconnect from one another and getting pissed off because we can't.

I read a story today about 826 National, a group of tutors (non-profit) who are helping children develop strong writing skills. Any kid (from 6-18) can walk in, grab a tutor, and begin learning English. Those who've already met English can get to know it better. When I tutored writing in college, I learned that people are often either very good at writing or are very good and just don’t read enough to know it yet. Honestly, it’s just like algebra. It’s all variables and brackets and noise. Suddenly, one day, something clicks. You can spout poetry. Either in numbers or in words, the sentences just spill out of you like wedding tears.

This is a lovely thing to do for others. In a time when people are all about martyred entitlement, sighing loudly when asked to push “1” for English, it’s spectacular.

I thought a lot about being connected last month, right around a time when I felt profoundly disconnected, though not by choice. A friend invited me to attend a lecture at Northern Kentucky University (my Alma mater). At first, I felt completely nervous and freaked out, since being in public makes me feel…nervous and freaked out. But then I was aware of the moment, in a weird way, within it, listening to the speaker (Dr. V. Mohini Giri) talk about the millions widows in India, who lose what passed for human rights for the years when their husbands were alive. They are fucked in ways I can’t imagine. I’ve had a hard life. Those women make me look like Veruca fucking Salt.

Dr. Giri literally saved the lives of millions of women in India and continues to work for the rights of widows there. That's what she does. She has been working for over 40 years, teaching the widows not to put up with anyone’s bullshit (though in a much nicer, Nobel Peace Prize kind of way). Her parents taught her that she is as essential a part of the world as water. It was completely out of the question to expect people to succumb to foolish cultural standards simply because they're widows. When they tried to force those standards upon her, she refused. Despite being ridiculed and threatened, she kept her Bindi when they tried to take it away from her, refused to keep her eyes on the ground, and continued to kick ass. Ripley, Sarah Connor kind of ass.

I was very fortunate in that my friends got me into the “after party” or whatever fancy people call it when you get to hang out with people who lecture at the UN. When I saw Dr. Giri sitting by herself, I went to talk to her. I expected her to be like one of those Tibetan monks that you meet now and again at book stores. They’re all about Tibet and their divine right to be the reincarnation of some other guy (never a woman, of course). Admittedly, all I've managed to reincarnate (that I know of) is the same conclusion. I might feel inadequate if I didn't think that essentially, they’re just damned good at marketing the East to ex-Catholics and stoners. They're the cute guy who listens to your bullshit and gives you that "first five minutes of a good beer buzz" kind of confident euphoria. Pretty soon, the cat gets out of the bag. One of you is annoying, forcing the other one to wander off. I kind of expected something along those lines.

I was completely surprised by the woman who sat beside me and talked to me as though I'd known her my entire life. She almost reminded me of a beauty parlor lady from Kentucky. The kind of horn-rimmed, sweet lady with loads of common sense and resolve. She was attaching a string of beads to my glasses (so I wouldn't lose them) and explaining to me that it's all very logical. I am her sister, her daughter, her granddaughter. She told me, without irony or cheese, that she sees the entire world as her family. Obviously, I live in America. I am as jaded as the day is long but despite my efforts to spin this experience in some way that would make it easier for me to hate the world, she was the most genuinely kind, sane person I've ever met. I was (and actually still feel like) part of her family. As far as she is concerned, we all are. I've met people who think I'm not worth their time simply because I haven't finished a graduate degree. People who get angry when they have to push an extra button at an ATM machine. And here is this woman that I simply have no words to describe, telling me that I'm her sister and fixing my glasses for me.

She knows she’s essential in a way that I think many of us find difficult to grasp. We (Americans, I mean) like to think we’re essential because of who we’ve become or what we’ve made of our lives. I think that's why it's so easy for us to buy into Tibetan monks. They've made something of at least ten lives. This woman knows that we're essential because we simply are. You exist, you're in the club. End of story.

Long ago, I gave up on the belief that there were good people left in the world, so getting it back was a damned moving experience. Jesus monkeyfucking christ. It was transcendent.

So there I was, in the throes of a dismal, nihilistic torpor, thinking I can't walk another foggy mile in this Year of the Tea Party, oddly manic depressive zeitgeist, when a shining outpost of humanity sprouts out of a sand dune and I have to admit that hope is my second-favorite four-letter word.

(Fuck is my first favorite. You got that. Right?)

La Vie en Rose

I've watched La Vie en Rose about 4x this week. I'm not sure this is entirely healthy.