Up until today, the possibility of my health status interfering further with our travel plans was very real. But here I sit, in my hospital-issued nightie, with a soon-to-be detached IV and 130 odd stitches, awaiting release from the hospital. The surgery was a success and my recovery was stellar, if I do say so myself! I credit my 1.5 mile daily walks up and down the corridors, and of course Dr. Imatani's tremendous skill as a surgeon.
I feel great; ready to tackle the last-minute list of things that have to be done before we head out to PDX next week, as long as they don't involve bouncing, lifting, or roller coaster rides (I've had enough roller coaster to last a lifetime these past 6 months!).
The girls seem ready, even if they are slightly scared to death, and Matt has taken care of numerous loose strings to ensure everything is in order while we are gone.
I have 3 more work days. The girls have 2 more days of school. This is really happening!
Yee-Haw!
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Thursday, December 9, 2010
Two Kinds of Surprises
I was so proud of myself. I had just completed a year-long commitment to running to and from work every day. Yes, it was a pain packing the daily backpack with towel, shampoo and work clothes, hanging the sweaty running gear up to dry in the office locker room between runs, and making my 10 year old daughter go super slow so that we could commute home from school together - me on foot; she on two wheels. But I savored the efficiency of combining my 3 mile commute with my daily exercise needs and reveled in my independence from gas tank fill-ups, crowded buses and even flat bike tires and road grit. Freedom was truly mine on my own two feet, and I was as healthy as a 41-year old female could expect to be without super-extraordinary effort.
That is why it was such a huge surprise to suddenly find myself in a hospital bed with a thick, 8 inch scar from my navel to my public bone. The diagnosis was colon cancer; the surgery had been abrupt and extensive.
"We spent a long time just cleaning out the infection," Dr Imatani explained in a calm, reassuring tone. "The tumor perforated the colon and grew onto your left fallopian tube, ovary and a section of the transverse colon," he said. The doctor had taken all three. He left me with several staples, a few tubes jutting from my body and an ostomy.
What is an ostomy? I sure as heck had never heard of it. But there, on the lower left side of my abdomen, was a plastic bag stuck to my skin. Through the transparent film, I saw a red cylindrical protuberance about 1" long and 1" wide. It was my colon. The doctor had made an incision in my abdominal wall, extended the newly-severed end of the colon through the slot and stitched it securely to my skin. The children call it a 'button.' I call it my second asshole. What a joy.
The shock of learning that I had had cancer overshadowed any queasiness about the new, distasteful dimensions and operations of my body. That I still had a body - and a conscious that recognised the fact - was a relief. That I was the host of a disease known to torture and kill millions of people each year, however, was a heavy and difficult awakening.
My first thoughts were of my children and my potentially early demise: I would miss them terribly; they would bear the scars of losing a parent. I shed a few tears of sadness for all that I might not be there for. But, being a planner by nature, I began to do the math, vaguely through the drug-induced fog in my post-op hospital bed. The worst case scenario was a five year life expectancy. Could I get my children ready for life in five years? Could I finish the serious job of parenting that I had committed to, had eagerly signed up for, when Katie was born 12 years ago? I reckoned I could accelerate the parenting and get Katie launched into adulthood in that time frame. Georgia would miss out on a few crucial years of my influence and support, but she would be 15, and she was ever-resourceful. I began to feel better about all I could accomplish with whatever time limits the disease might constrain me with.
And I realized that I cannot be sad when I am dead; I cannot miss my family when I am dead. I could work with this idea of not being around forever, and chances were good that I would win many more than the minimal number of years after this scary diagnosis. I had things to do, goals to accomplish. I was not one to let a few malfunctioning cells get in my way.
After all, I was - and still am - extremely healthy. The mystery of how I got a cancerous tumor in my colon is something we will never know, and after a few days of wondering why, I stopped. There WAS no reason; there was nothing anyone did or didn't do to cause it. I had no control nor blame. Letting go of the need to find causality was the first big step down the long path of subduing any remaining cancer cells floating around in my bloodstream or my body's tendency to allow cancerous cells to survive inside of me. I eat well, exercise regularly and don't have any self-defeating addictions, like cigarettes or coffee. But everyone can improve, so I decided to do whatever I could to encourage only healthy cell growth and help my immune system recognise and destroy imperfect cells wherever they might be.
Getting healthier was a dilemma. What could I do differently? The pamphlets in the surgeon's office profiled a person less likely to develop cancer: it was me to a tee! The recommended diet included minimal red meat and alcohol; the recommended exercise regiment prescribed 30 minutes of cardio every day. I was already doing that (at least before the surgery!). So I looked elsewhere, outside my body. Where else could I make improvements to my health? The answer was clearly in my mind.
I did make a few changes to my diet, one-upping the recommendations, just in case. I cut out red meat altogether, as well as coffee and alcohol. But the bigger change-goal was in my attitude. I decided to rid myself of all resentment and anger, and any other pent-up emotional baggage that could be collecting, figuratively - and maybe even literally - in my gut. I met with a therapist to develop tools to help me find forgiveness, peace and acceptance for everyone in my life, including myself. I found a guided imagery recording and listened to it every day, trying to put into practice these ideas. I read everything I could get my hands on about cancer, healing and healthy relationships.
I don't have cancer. I had cancer. Now I have chemotherapy - it is finding and desiccating errant cancer cells that may or may not exist in my body. The drugs, with help from my visualization exercises, search out abnormal cells, crush them into a benign powder and sweep them out of my body through my ostomy...where they fall into a plastic bag...which I dump into the trash can outside. This is how I imagine it: twice a day, every day.
My six-month treatment is nearing its grand finale. I have seven weeks left, consisting of two infusions, 168 pills and one surgery. I am feeling great and in most respects have resumed my prior lifestyle, including running to and from work (albeit only once or twice a week). Many people would be surprised to know I am being treated for cancer. How could they? I am not sick. The biggest surprise of all: my experience with cancer has not chewed me up and spit me out a torn, sickly, emotionally exhausted wreck. The challenges have left me stronger, more clear-headed and actually happier.
Every day offers something to admire, from the odd beauty of a yellow-gray overcast sky to the uplifting tinkly laugh coming from a passing baby stroller. I have no fear of cancer. I am comfortable with the fact that everyone dies. Best of all, I now truly know that I have things to do, people to love and goals to accomplish, and I require a healthy, strong body to do this. And so I have.
That is why it was such a huge surprise to suddenly find myself in a hospital bed with a thick, 8 inch scar from my navel to my public bone. The diagnosis was colon cancer; the surgery had been abrupt and extensive.
"We spent a long time just cleaning out the infection," Dr Imatani explained in a calm, reassuring tone. "The tumor perforated the colon and grew onto your left fallopian tube, ovary and a section of the transverse colon," he said. The doctor had taken all three. He left me with several staples, a few tubes jutting from my body and an ostomy.
What is an ostomy? I sure as heck had never heard of it. But there, on the lower left side of my abdomen, was a plastic bag stuck to my skin. Through the transparent film, I saw a red cylindrical protuberance about 1" long and 1" wide. It was my colon. The doctor had made an incision in my abdominal wall, extended the newly-severed end of the colon through the slot and stitched it securely to my skin. The children call it a 'button.' I call it my second asshole. What a joy.
The shock of learning that I had had cancer overshadowed any queasiness about the new, distasteful dimensions and operations of my body. That I still had a body - and a conscious that recognised the fact - was a relief. That I was the host of a disease known to torture and kill millions of people each year, however, was a heavy and difficult awakening.
My first thoughts were of my children and my potentially early demise: I would miss them terribly; they would bear the scars of losing a parent. I shed a few tears of sadness for all that I might not be there for. But, being a planner by nature, I began to do the math, vaguely through the drug-induced fog in my post-op hospital bed. The worst case scenario was a five year life expectancy. Could I get my children ready for life in five years? Could I finish the serious job of parenting that I had committed to, had eagerly signed up for, when Katie was born 12 years ago? I reckoned I could accelerate the parenting and get Katie launched into adulthood in that time frame. Georgia would miss out on a few crucial years of my influence and support, but she would be 15, and she was ever-resourceful. I began to feel better about all I could accomplish with whatever time limits the disease might constrain me with.
And I realized that I cannot be sad when I am dead; I cannot miss my family when I am dead. I could work with this idea of not being around forever, and chances were good that I would win many more than the minimal number of years after this scary diagnosis. I had things to do, goals to accomplish. I was not one to let a few malfunctioning cells get in my way.
After all, I was - and still am - extremely healthy. The mystery of how I got a cancerous tumor in my colon is something we will never know, and after a few days of wondering why, I stopped. There WAS no reason; there was nothing anyone did or didn't do to cause it. I had no control nor blame. Letting go of the need to find causality was the first big step down the long path of subduing any remaining cancer cells floating around in my bloodstream or my body's tendency to allow cancerous cells to survive inside of me. I eat well, exercise regularly and don't have any self-defeating addictions, like cigarettes or coffee. But everyone can improve, so I decided to do whatever I could to encourage only healthy cell growth and help my immune system recognise and destroy imperfect cells wherever they might be.
Getting healthier was a dilemma. What could I do differently? The pamphlets in the surgeon's office profiled a person less likely to develop cancer: it was me to a tee! The recommended diet included minimal red meat and alcohol; the recommended exercise regiment prescribed 30 minutes of cardio every day. I was already doing that (at least before the surgery!). So I looked elsewhere, outside my body. Where else could I make improvements to my health? The answer was clearly in my mind.
I did make a few changes to my diet, one-upping the recommendations, just in case. I cut out red meat altogether, as well as coffee and alcohol. But the bigger change-goal was in my attitude. I decided to rid myself of all resentment and anger, and any other pent-up emotional baggage that could be collecting, figuratively - and maybe even literally - in my gut. I met with a therapist to develop tools to help me find forgiveness, peace and acceptance for everyone in my life, including myself. I found a guided imagery recording and listened to it every day, trying to put into practice these ideas. I read everything I could get my hands on about cancer, healing and healthy relationships.
I don't have cancer. I had cancer. Now I have chemotherapy - it is finding and desiccating errant cancer cells that may or may not exist in my body. The drugs, with help from my visualization exercises, search out abnormal cells, crush them into a benign powder and sweep them out of my body through my ostomy...where they fall into a plastic bag...which I dump into the trash can outside. This is how I imagine it: twice a day, every day.
My six-month treatment is nearing its grand finale. I have seven weeks left, consisting of two infusions, 168 pills and one surgery. I am feeling great and in most respects have resumed my prior lifestyle, including running to and from work (albeit only once or twice a week). Many people would be surprised to know I am being treated for cancer. How could they? I am not sick. The biggest surprise of all: my experience with cancer has not chewed me up and spit me out a torn, sickly, emotionally exhausted wreck. The challenges have left me stronger, more clear-headed and actually happier.
Every day offers something to admire, from the odd beauty of a yellow-gray overcast sky to the uplifting tinkly laugh coming from a passing baby stroller. I have no fear of cancer. I am comfortable with the fact that everyone dies. Best of all, I now truly know that I have things to do, people to love and goals to accomplish, and I require a healthy, strong body to do this. And so I have.
Saturday, March 6, 2010
A Hairy Mess - Part I
Every weekday morning, I wake at 5 am, drag myself out of bed and put on my running shorts, athletic bra, t-shirt and tennis shoes. Then I strap on my pre-packed backpack with the day’s wardrobe neatly rolled into wrinkle-proof packages and prepare to head out the door on my daily 3-mile running commute downtown to my office job. But, before I go, there is one more thing I have to deal with – my hair.
To visualize the hair on my head, especially right after I get up, imagine (in black and white perhaps) a cotton candy machine into which someone has thrown a grocery bag full of twigs. Spun bark, anyone? The volume could pierce eardrums if we were talking about the other definition of the word. This hair is big. This hair is ornery. It made a very decent Hagrid costume one Halloween. Cavewoman and asylum patient are also successful costumes that capitalize on the thorny mess I wear on my head. It is long, bushy, brown, and out of control.
Hairstyle choices for running to work are many, but none are especially flattering. This does not matter because no-one sees me in the pre-dawn pitch blackness as I trumble by sleeping dogs and the neighbors’ dark windows. I can put it in a ponytail and tuck it down the back of my shirt, but that itches like crazy. If I leave it outside the shirt, it frequently tangles on the teeth of the backpack’s zipper and lashes me to my equipage in a very inconvenient way, which I realize only once I have arrived at the locked office door and try to hoist the backpack from my shoulders to retrieve my keycard. Clownish acrobatics ensue as I reach over my shoulders trying to unclamp the jaws of the angry backpack from the curious, creeping vines of my knotted, now shredded hair. My colleagues – the ones who arrive early enough – pass me with averted eyes, embarrassed to know this crazy, sweaty woman bending over backwards in a civil war with an unruly body part.
Another running hairstyle option is the braid. This is a safe partner with the backpack because it is too thick and contained to wedge itself in between zipper prongs. The raw, tender spot where the ocean-going-vessel-sized rope steadily slaps the back of my neck – once for every one of the 4,800 bobbing steps of my commute - can be salved and solved with a little TLC. But getting the snarled hair into the braid in the first place first thing in the morning takes as long as it does to run to work.
The simplicity of letting my hair float, untethered all around me as I run often tempts me. The result is two solid curtains of brown, ensconcing half of my face. Although this gratefully conceals my identity from early-morning dog-walkers and the security guard at my office building, it also acts as blinders, blocking my peripheral vision (and most of my axial vision too). This allows skulking bad guys and cracks in the sidewalk to remain unseen until it is too late, an unnecessary hazard my scarred knees probably resent. I value being able to see, especially when alone on a dark, lonely back street.
The solution that I use most often these days is the double clip. I bundle up what starts out as an angry cloud of wiry, errant hair, and, without the need for brushing, I twist it up into a single thick stalk, strong enough to support Jack, if not the Giant, which I then clip to the back of my head with two “jaws of life” hair-holding devices. They might just as easily be called the jaws of death, as they resemble fighting piranhas or tangled bear traps as they lock together on either side of the twisted trunk of hair. Luckily, they are made out of plastic. The double clip is a miraculous remedy for too much hair.
The double clip didn’t always work for me. In between the shorter, layered style I used to wear and the extra long, all one length anti-style I now host, the clips weren’t able to hold all of the various pieces out of my face at once. It is ironic looking back at how frustrating it was to struggle with the double clip in those days of more manageable hair, and now that my hair is certifiably unmanageable, they work like a dream. The one good thing (yes, there is only one good thing) about having long hair is the ability to put it all up at once. Medium length hair and layered cuts require multiple clips, elastic bands and other hair-securing devices to contain the many different lengths if you want to be able to play sports or see.
So, why, you ask, do I continue to battle the millions of strands of dead keratin that exude from my scalp? The answer I tell my officemates is “Locks of Love.” Of course, that is not the primary reason, but it is the easiest to explain. Ostensibly, I have been growing my hair out for three years so I can cut it all off and donate it to a charity that makes wigs for children with a disease that keeps them from growing their own hair. I set a goal of 14 inches of hair to grow and give, so that someone could benefit from this plethora of dead cells my body insists on producing. I always say, the rich should donate their money, the idle, their time, and the hirsute, their hair. I have too much hair, so why not give it to someone who needs it? But in reality, the goal is not to grow it, but to cut it, regardless of poor bald children or contrived beneficence on my part.
I want to cut my hair, not just short, but Sinead O’Connor short. Sigourney Weaver/Ellen Ripley short. GI Jane short.
To visualize the hair on my head, especially right after I get up, imagine (in black and white perhaps) a cotton candy machine into which someone has thrown a grocery bag full of twigs. Spun bark, anyone? The volume could pierce eardrums if we were talking about the other definition of the word. This hair is big. This hair is ornery. It made a very decent Hagrid costume one Halloween. Cavewoman and asylum patient are also successful costumes that capitalize on the thorny mess I wear on my head. It is long, bushy, brown, and out of control.
Hairstyle choices for running to work are many, but none are especially flattering. This does not matter because no-one sees me in the pre-dawn pitch blackness as I trumble by sleeping dogs and the neighbors’ dark windows. I can put it in a ponytail and tuck it down the back of my shirt, but that itches like crazy. If I leave it outside the shirt, it frequently tangles on the teeth of the backpack’s zipper and lashes me to my equipage in a very inconvenient way, which I realize only once I have arrived at the locked office door and try to hoist the backpack from my shoulders to retrieve my keycard. Clownish acrobatics ensue as I reach over my shoulders trying to unclamp the jaws of the angry backpack from the curious, creeping vines of my knotted, now shredded hair. My colleagues – the ones who arrive early enough – pass me with averted eyes, embarrassed to know this crazy, sweaty woman bending over backwards in a civil war with an unruly body part.
Another running hairstyle option is the braid. This is a safe partner with the backpack because it is too thick and contained to wedge itself in between zipper prongs. The raw, tender spot where the ocean-going-vessel-sized rope steadily slaps the back of my neck – once for every one of the 4,800 bobbing steps of my commute - can be salved and solved with a little TLC. But getting the snarled hair into the braid in the first place first thing in the morning takes as long as it does to run to work.
The simplicity of letting my hair float, untethered all around me as I run often tempts me. The result is two solid curtains of brown, ensconcing half of my face. Although this gratefully conceals my identity from early-morning dog-walkers and the security guard at my office building, it also acts as blinders, blocking my peripheral vision (and most of my axial vision too). This allows skulking bad guys and cracks in the sidewalk to remain unseen until it is too late, an unnecessary hazard my scarred knees probably resent. I value being able to see, especially when alone on a dark, lonely back street.
The solution that I use most often these days is the double clip. I bundle up what starts out as an angry cloud of wiry, errant hair, and, without the need for brushing, I twist it up into a single thick stalk, strong enough to support Jack, if not the Giant, which I then clip to the back of my head with two “jaws of life” hair-holding devices. They might just as easily be called the jaws of death, as they resemble fighting piranhas or tangled bear traps as they lock together on either side of the twisted trunk of hair. Luckily, they are made out of plastic. The double clip is a miraculous remedy for too much hair.
The double clip didn’t always work for me. In between the shorter, layered style I used to wear and the extra long, all one length anti-style I now host, the clips weren’t able to hold all of the various pieces out of my face at once. It is ironic looking back at how frustrating it was to struggle with the double clip in those days of more manageable hair, and now that my hair is certifiably unmanageable, they work like a dream. The one good thing (yes, there is only one good thing) about having long hair is the ability to put it all up at once. Medium length hair and layered cuts require multiple clips, elastic bands and other hair-securing devices to contain the many different lengths if you want to be able to play sports or see.
So, why, you ask, do I continue to battle the millions of strands of dead keratin that exude from my scalp? The answer I tell my officemates is “Locks of Love.” Of course, that is not the primary reason, but it is the easiest to explain. Ostensibly, I have been growing my hair out for three years so I can cut it all off and donate it to a charity that makes wigs for children with a disease that keeps them from growing their own hair. I set a goal of 14 inches of hair to grow and give, so that someone could benefit from this plethora of dead cells my body insists on producing. I always say, the rich should donate their money, the idle, their time, and the hirsute, their hair. I have too much hair, so why not give it to someone who needs it? But in reality, the goal is not to grow it, but to cut it, regardless of poor bald children or contrived beneficence on my part.
I want to cut my hair, not just short, but Sinead O’Connor short. Sigourney Weaver/Ellen Ripley short. GI Jane short.
A Hairy Mess - Part II
I want to cut my hair, not just short, but Sinead O’Connor short. Sigourney Weaver/Ellen Ripley short. GI Jane short.
This dramatic shift from bear-like hippy woman to dike-ish military heroine may seem strange, even suggest a mid-life crisis. It does to my mother. She said to me “I will feel bad every time I look at you if you cut your hair so short.” Not surprising words, since it was she who, as I prepared for my first job interview at age 15, advised me to “Wear your hair down; men like lots of hair.” Luckily, I am happily married. Pleasing men is not on my list of things to do, nor can my husband divorce me for lack of hair. He has expressed some reservations, but, after months of hearing my repetitive claim that the day is coming when the hair will disappear, he seems resigned to allow me to make my own decisions about my body – imagine that! If my soon-to-be peach-fuzzy – and probably lumpy - cranium bothers him, he can simply turn out the lights before making love. At least it will be easier finding my face. What is so sexy about a mouthful of hair anyway?
What I was least prepared for as I slowly made up my mind to cut my hair was the mystifying reaction of my two children. They have taken the news very hard. My 11 year old has been steeling herself for the moments when she will be forced to be seen with me, sure that she will be embarrassed beyond her worst fears. My youngest daughter tells me she will no longer look at me when my hair is gone. She went as far as to say that she wouldn’t love me anymore sans hair. As troubling as these responses have been, they propelled me even more ardently towards the buzz cut of my desires. Originally, I was planning on shaving my head bald, but have since compromised with my daughters and will shoot for a pair of shears set at ½ inch. It would be harder, it’s true, to pull off complete baldness in a professional business setting, so I am happy with my cop-out/settlement.
What is the attraction of a culturally ostracizing hairstyle, totally unbecoming by American standards, especially for an almost-over-the-hill mother and established professional businesswoman? Young people can be forgiven their eccentricities and impetuous foibles (just look at the number of stupid tattoos out there!), but why would I invite the deluge of strange looks and questions that will accost me on my first day back at work, looking like my 75 year old father-in-law? People will think I have started chemo or turned lesbian, or simply gone off my rocker. What is it about this haircut idea that makes it worth my family’s disdain, my co-workers’ curiosity, my friends concern for my sanity?
The source of my desire is two-fold. First of all, I have never cut my hair extremely short before. Since I was a child, I have had medium-length, chestnut-brown hair. When high school or college friends rebelled by dying their hair goth-black, or joined the chic-butch crowd by clipping it short in the back and letting a ragged top-knot flop over to one side, my staid, dependable auburn curls spoke out in a different way. Platinum blonde bobs and hennaed rattails partied at all the raves and Jenifer Aniston look-alikes in their California flat-ironed perfection paraded in front of urban sidewalk cafes, but my naturally pretty hair blew in the wind and said “confidence” and “consistency” with its unprocessed effortlessness. I have always found pride in liking myself just the way I am, or at least pretending to. So much that I didn’t need to change to match the trends of the day.
But being so consistently consistent can be a bit boring. I have reached 40, and the gray hairs have started to appear. As much as I stand by my typical hairstyle as a timeless statement on the beauty of naturalness, time is running out. If I am ever going to try something different, something as unfashionably adventurous as a super-short ‘high and tight’, it would be nice if it were brown, not gray. I don’t intend on dying my grey hair to look younger (why would I want to look younger? My husband is older than me, and I wouldn’t want him to feel left out.) So, perhaps, when my hair grows back, it might still retain some youthful chestnut color. Yes, “now or never” is what my body is telling me, so with my commitment of 14 inches for the little girls with Alopecia Areata, I might as well have a little fun and see the shape of my skull after all these years.
The second, and certainly most compelling reason to cut my hair in this ultra-manly style is strangely captured in the reactions, both realized and expected, to the act itself. I do not mean to say that I am an attention-seeker, glorying in the gasps and awkwardness of my coworkers and family. Rather, I am appalled and distraught that my own family could claim to stop loving me, my peers feel justified in treating me with suspicion, and strangers on the street judge me differently, all because of a little hair. If a man were to transform their looks as dramatically as I am planning on doing, it would be noteworthy for a day around the water cooler. But, I fear, a woman doing so might elicit a prolonged period of harsh criticism, cold treatment and doubts as to her sense and stability. Hair is one of the characteristics that differentiate women from men, at least in America. Without the obvious symbols of femaleness laid bare (sometimes literally, as in cleavage), society gets restive. “What next?” America says, “Will she try to get paid as much as a man too?” When our sexuality isn’t primped, plastered and sprayed with a billion dollars worth of capitalist product every year, will men stop recognizing women for the sexually receptive females that we are? Does our attractiveness rest only in the external pomp and camouflage that we put into our hair and paint onto our faces?
Sadly, the true origin, the seed for my plot to shear down one of my most obvious features of femininity and beauty, again came from my daughters. Three years ago, they set my calculating brain to ticking. Their hair was more beautiful than mine had ever been, with golden ringlets hanging around their faces like ripe, corkscrew fruits, ripe for the picking. Neither girl had successfully learned to brush her hair, and they were 6 and 8 years old at the time, well old enough to be able to take care of their own hair. But, like mine, it tended towards dreadlocks, and brushing it took an honest hour, once a week. So, one day I told them that they would learn how to brush their hair by the time they turned 8 and 10, or else I would make them cut it short. I was tired of slaving away through tears and handfuls of tangles ripped from their skulls. They would have to start brushing their hair daily, which would reduce the pain and frustration.
Thinking the task impossible, the girls focused on the very earnest threat to make them cut their hair to shoulder length or shorter. They both panicked. Through tears and wails of dread, they expressed the belief that their hair was all they had that made them special. Their hair was, like Sampson, all powerful, and they were nothing without it! I was shocked and disgusted by this perception of themselves, and yet I, along with my family and friends and every stranger who stopped us on the street to tell them what beautiful hair they had, were complicit in their brainwashing. By reminding them so often of their most obvious physical trait, we had somehow led them to believe that there were no other attributes worth mentioning. They identified themselves as the little girls with the beautiful hair, not the smart little girls who could run like the wind or do long division in their heads. The idea of being without their identifying locks was, to them, like getting a lobotomy – they would be so much less without them!
The false emphasis society - with me a participating member - puts on physical beauty, is unnatural, unkind, and unsustainable. Americans spend millions of dollars a year trying to look younger, hipper and cooler through manipulation of their natural god-given hair. They want to be someone else: someone straighter, someone curlier, someone blonder - not the young-at-heart, hip, cool, grey-haired person they actually are, and that saddens me. I started counting the number of people on airplanes who dyed their hair: hair dye being an easy way to identify people dissatisfied with how they look naturally. Every single woman (except myself) had an obvious hair color job, and some of the men too. In the elevator, 80% of the women dyed their hair. In the grocery store line, 70% of the women dyed their hair. Obviously, most American women are unhappy with their true selves.
Each morning when I arrive at the office, I go to the locker room to take a shower and dress for work. Usually when I arrive, an even earlier-rising regular, Bonnie, has already finished her shower. She prepares herself, like a Thanksgiving dinner, for the office as if her coworkers’ job is to consume her. I greet her with a brief “Hello”. She pulls up her control-top pantyhose over a black lacey thong that hides between her unnaturally bronze buttocks. She pushes her silicone enhanced breasts into a flowery push-up bra. I go about the business of undressing, showering, and dressing for work. By the time I have finished my routine, she has made it half way through the 45 minute process of flat ironing her hair and ‘putting on her face’. This consists of applying moisturizer, concealer, foundation, mascara, lipstick, eye shadow, and blush.
One morning, as I was about to leave, she pulled out the hairspray and said to me, “Sometimes I wish I were a man. Then I wouldn’t have to do all of this.”
Stunned silence delayed my response, but I remained polite, even as my anger swelled at her attitude of helpless victim of society. I saw her as an overzealous propagator of the unrealistic ideals women and girls face every day. It was she, and others like her, who relentlessly undermine my daughters’ fragile sense of self with an all-pervasive, contrived, beauty-from-a-bottle theology. Bonnie was like the aristocratic women of ancient China who folded their toes under to make their feet look smaller and more attractive, thus immobilizing themselves to a point where they could not run away even to save themselves. Bonnie’s expensive and time-consuming re-creation of beauty to meet the current definition per society’s standards, chained her to the locker room for 45 minutes every day. “Beauty is everything”, her arduous morning ritual seemed to say.
“You don’t have to do all of that,” I said, none too subtly, since I had just transformed from a sweaty, frizzle-headed ragamuffin to a presentable businessperson in 15 minutes. “Just decide not to care.”
Bonnie’s martyr attitude horrifies me. My daughters’ unnecessary insecurities horrify me. America’s treatment of women - indeed, women’s treatment of themselves - horrifies me. My haircut is my way of telling my girls, and Bonnie too, that the outward frosting is not important; that a persons’ true beauty comes from their personality, their expressions, the way they treat people.
I hope my family still finds me attractive without hair, but even if I am as ugly as they predict, I believe they will still recognize me as a caring, loving woman, just as worthy of respect as if I were drop dead gorgeous. I don’t care if I look bad without hair - that’s not the point. I believe in leading by example. This is my chance to demonstrate what giving up one’s vanity looks like, and I hope it doesn’t look as bad as they think it will.
……
I look at a single strand of my hair. This strand is more or less dark brown and wavy. I pulled it out of my head just now with about 1,500 others as I sat shredding split ends in a Herculean effort to simply get a brush through the briar patch. Although I condition and brush my hair every day, its tendency to grapple and hold on to itself never wanes. Nor does my drive to wrangle it into some semblance of order.
I imagine each thread has dozens of tiny fishhook barbs along the shaft that interlock with neighboring strands in a ritualistic clinging to the dead past. Perhaps, symbolically, I too have been hanging on to what used-to-be by retaining the same hairstyle I had in high school 22 years ago. If hair grows an average of ½ inch a year, this strand has been with me for 20 years. The 14 inches I am giving away represent 28 years of my life. I was 12 when many of these hairs burst forth from my scalp. I was a virgin, an adolescent, naïve and happy in my innocence. These hairs have seen Europe, Japan, almost all 50 of the states; high school, college, marriage, children.
Here at the freshly uprooted end, I see a firm cylinder of dark brown. I follow along the shaft and notice variations in density and color, like tree rings, representing the seasons. Summers, when I actually used to spend some time out doors, are colored a lighter copper. About halfway up, the hair changes weight, becomes unusually thin and wispy, as if my diet was malnutritious that year. Was that the year I went on a diet and lost 20 pounds, but ended up passing out so often that I went back to my weight-sustaining caloric intake? It’s a wonder the hair never broke in that spot. I spy a spot, there: 6 inches from the end. The follicle grows fat for a half inch or so. That appears to be 1998, when I was pregnant with my first daughter and the pre-natal vitamins kicked in, giving my hair extra gloss and thickness. And a few inches further along the shaft, I recognize my second pregnancy with my younger daughter.
This one hair, along with approximately 4 million others, will soon be sacrificed in the name of standing up to stereotypes and unrealistic expectations - mine as well as others’. In the name of giving what you can to those who need it; in the name of being oneself; I cut my hair.
This dramatic shift from bear-like hippy woman to dike-ish military heroine may seem strange, even suggest a mid-life crisis. It does to my mother. She said to me “I will feel bad every time I look at you if you cut your hair so short.” Not surprising words, since it was she who, as I prepared for my first job interview at age 15, advised me to “Wear your hair down; men like lots of hair.” Luckily, I am happily married. Pleasing men is not on my list of things to do, nor can my husband divorce me for lack of hair. He has expressed some reservations, but, after months of hearing my repetitive claim that the day is coming when the hair will disappear, he seems resigned to allow me to make my own decisions about my body – imagine that! If my soon-to-be peach-fuzzy – and probably lumpy - cranium bothers him, he can simply turn out the lights before making love. At least it will be easier finding my face. What is so sexy about a mouthful of hair anyway?
What I was least prepared for as I slowly made up my mind to cut my hair was the mystifying reaction of my two children. They have taken the news very hard. My 11 year old has been steeling herself for the moments when she will be forced to be seen with me, sure that she will be embarrassed beyond her worst fears. My youngest daughter tells me she will no longer look at me when my hair is gone. She went as far as to say that she wouldn’t love me anymore sans hair. As troubling as these responses have been, they propelled me even more ardently towards the buzz cut of my desires. Originally, I was planning on shaving my head bald, but have since compromised with my daughters and will shoot for a pair of shears set at ½ inch. It would be harder, it’s true, to pull off complete baldness in a professional business setting, so I am happy with my cop-out/settlement.
What is the attraction of a culturally ostracizing hairstyle, totally unbecoming by American standards, especially for an almost-over-the-hill mother and established professional businesswoman? Young people can be forgiven their eccentricities and impetuous foibles (just look at the number of stupid tattoos out there!), but why would I invite the deluge of strange looks and questions that will accost me on my first day back at work, looking like my 75 year old father-in-law? People will think I have started chemo or turned lesbian, or simply gone off my rocker. What is it about this haircut idea that makes it worth my family’s disdain, my co-workers’ curiosity, my friends concern for my sanity?
The source of my desire is two-fold. First of all, I have never cut my hair extremely short before. Since I was a child, I have had medium-length, chestnut-brown hair. When high school or college friends rebelled by dying their hair goth-black, or joined the chic-butch crowd by clipping it short in the back and letting a ragged top-knot flop over to one side, my staid, dependable auburn curls spoke out in a different way. Platinum blonde bobs and hennaed rattails partied at all the raves and Jenifer Aniston look-alikes in their California flat-ironed perfection paraded in front of urban sidewalk cafes, but my naturally pretty hair blew in the wind and said “confidence” and “consistency” with its unprocessed effortlessness. I have always found pride in liking myself just the way I am, or at least pretending to. So much that I didn’t need to change to match the trends of the day.
But being so consistently consistent can be a bit boring. I have reached 40, and the gray hairs have started to appear. As much as I stand by my typical hairstyle as a timeless statement on the beauty of naturalness, time is running out. If I am ever going to try something different, something as unfashionably adventurous as a super-short ‘high and tight’, it would be nice if it were brown, not gray. I don’t intend on dying my grey hair to look younger (why would I want to look younger? My husband is older than me, and I wouldn’t want him to feel left out.) So, perhaps, when my hair grows back, it might still retain some youthful chestnut color. Yes, “now or never” is what my body is telling me, so with my commitment of 14 inches for the little girls with Alopecia Areata, I might as well have a little fun and see the shape of my skull after all these years.
The second, and certainly most compelling reason to cut my hair in this ultra-manly style is strangely captured in the reactions, both realized and expected, to the act itself. I do not mean to say that I am an attention-seeker, glorying in the gasps and awkwardness of my coworkers and family. Rather, I am appalled and distraught that my own family could claim to stop loving me, my peers feel justified in treating me with suspicion, and strangers on the street judge me differently, all because of a little hair. If a man were to transform their looks as dramatically as I am planning on doing, it would be noteworthy for a day around the water cooler. But, I fear, a woman doing so might elicit a prolonged period of harsh criticism, cold treatment and doubts as to her sense and stability. Hair is one of the characteristics that differentiate women from men, at least in America. Without the obvious symbols of femaleness laid bare (sometimes literally, as in cleavage), society gets restive. “What next?” America says, “Will she try to get paid as much as a man too?” When our sexuality isn’t primped, plastered and sprayed with a billion dollars worth of capitalist product every year, will men stop recognizing women for the sexually receptive females that we are? Does our attractiveness rest only in the external pomp and camouflage that we put into our hair and paint onto our faces?
Sadly, the true origin, the seed for my plot to shear down one of my most obvious features of femininity and beauty, again came from my daughters. Three years ago, they set my calculating brain to ticking. Their hair was more beautiful than mine had ever been, with golden ringlets hanging around their faces like ripe, corkscrew fruits, ripe for the picking. Neither girl had successfully learned to brush her hair, and they were 6 and 8 years old at the time, well old enough to be able to take care of their own hair. But, like mine, it tended towards dreadlocks, and brushing it took an honest hour, once a week. So, one day I told them that they would learn how to brush their hair by the time they turned 8 and 10, or else I would make them cut it short. I was tired of slaving away through tears and handfuls of tangles ripped from their skulls. They would have to start brushing their hair daily, which would reduce the pain and frustration.
Thinking the task impossible, the girls focused on the very earnest threat to make them cut their hair to shoulder length or shorter. They both panicked. Through tears and wails of dread, they expressed the belief that their hair was all they had that made them special. Their hair was, like Sampson, all powerful, and they were nothing without it! I was shocked and disgusted by this perception of themselves, and yet I, along with my family and friends and every stranger who stopped us on the street to tell them what beautiful hair they had, were complicit in their brainwashing. By reminding them so often of their most obvious physical trait, we had somehow led them to believe that there were no other attributes worth mentioning. They identified themselves as the little girls with the beautiful hair, not the smart little girls who could run like the wind or do long division in their heads. The idea of being without their identifying locks was, to them, like getting a lobotomy – they would be so much less without them!
The false emphasis society - with me a participating member - puts on physical beauty, is unnatural, unkind, and unsustainable. Americans spend millions of dollars a year trying to look younger, hipper and cooler through manipulation of their natural god-given hair. They want to be someone else: someone straighter, someone curlier, someone blonder - not the young-at-heart, hip, cool, grey-haired person they actually are, and that saddens me. I started counting the number of people on airplanes who dyed their hair: hair dye being an easy way to identify people dissatisfied with how they look naturally. Every single woman (except myself) had an obvious hair color job, and some of the men too. In the elevator, 80% of the women dyed their hair. In the grocery store line, 70% of the women dyed their hair. Obviously, most American women are unhappy with their true selves.
Each morning when I arrive at the office, I go to the locker room to take a shower and dress for work. Usually when I arrive, an even earlier-rising regular, Bonnie, has already finished her shower. She prepares herself, like a Thanksgiving dinner, for the office as if her coworkers’ job is to consume her. I greet her with a brief “Hello”. She pulls up her control-top pantyhose over a black lacey thong that hides between her unnaturally bronze buttocks. She pushes her silicone enhanced breasts into a flowery push-up bra. I go about the business of undressing, showering, and dressing for work. By the time I have finished my routine, she has made it half way through the 45 minute process of flat ironing her hair and ‘putting on her face’. This consists of applying moisturizer, concealer, foundation, mascara, lipstick, eye shadow, and blush.
One morning, as I was about to leave, she pulled out the hairspray and said to me, “Sometimes I wish I were a man. Then I wouldn’t have to do all of this.”
Stunned silence delayed my response, but I remained polite, even as my anger swelled at her attitude of helpless victim of society. I saw her as an overzealous propagator of the unrealistic ideals women and girls face every day. It was she, and others like her, who relentlessly undermine my daughters’ fragile sense of self with an all-pervasive, contrived, beauty-from-a-bottle theology. Bonnie was like the aristocratic women of ancient China who folded their toes under to make their feet look smaller and more attractive, thus immobilizing themselves to a point where they could not run away even to save themselves. Bonnie’s expensive and time-consuming re-creation of beauty to meet the current definition per society’s standards, chained her to the locker room for 45 minutes every day. “Beauty is everything”, her arduous morning ritual seemed to say.
“You don’t have to do all of that,” I said, none too subtly, since I had just transformed from a sweaty, frizzle-headed ragamuffin to a presentable businessperson in 15 minutes. “Just decide not to care.”
Bonnie’s martyr attitude horrifies me. My daughters’ unnecessary insecurities horrify me. America’s treatment of women - indeed, women’s treatment of themselves - horrifies me. My haircut is my way of telling my girls, and Bonnie too, that the outward frosting is not important; that a persons’ true beauty comes from their personality, their expressions, the way they treat people.
I hope my family still finds me attractive without hair, but even if I am as ugly as they predict, I believe they will still recognize me as a caring, loving woman, just as worthy of respect as if I were drop dead gorgeous. I don’t care if I look bad without hair - that’s not the point. I believe in leading by example. This is my chance to demonstrate what giving up one’s vanity looks like, and I hope it doesn’t look as bad as they think it will.
……
I look at a single strand of my hair. This strand is more or less dark brown and wavy. I pulled it out of my head just now with about 1,500 others as I sat shredding split ends in a Herculean effort to simply get a brush through the briar patch. Although I condition and brush my hair every day, its tendency to grapple and hold on to itself never wanes. Nor does my drive to wrangle it into some semblance of order.
I imagine each thread has dozens of tiny fishhook barbs along the shaft that interlock with neighboring strands in a ritualistic clinging to the dead past. Perhaps, symbolically, I too have been hanging on to what used-to-be by retaining the same hairstyle I had in high school 22 years ago. If hair grows an average of ½ inch a year, this strand has been with me for 20 years. The 14 inches I am giving away represent 28 years of my life. I was 12 when many of these hairs burst forth from my scalp. I was a virgin, an adolescent, naïve and happy in my innocence. These hairs have seen Europe, Japan, almost all 50 of the states; high school, college, marriage, children.
Here at the freshly uprooted end, I see a firm cylinder of dark brown. I follow along the shaft and notice variations in density and color, like tree rings, representing the seasons. Summers, when I actually used to spend some time out doors, are colored a lighter copper. About halfway up, the hair changes weight, becomes unusually thin and wispy, as if my diet was malnutritious that year. Was that the year I went on a diet and lost 20 pounds, but ended up passing out so often that I went back to my weight-sustaining caloric intake? It’s a wonder the hair never broke in that spot. I spy a spot, there: 6 inches from the end. The follicle grows fat for a half inch or so. That appears to be 1998, when I was pregnant with my first daughter and the pre-natal vitamins kicked in, giving my hair extra gloss and thickness. And a few inches further along the shaft, I recognize my second pregnancy with my younger daughter.
This one hair, along with approximately 4 million others, will soon be sacrificed in the name of standing up to stereotypes and unrealistic expectations - mine as well as others’. In the name of giving what you can to those who need it; in the name of being oneself; I cut my hair.
Sunday, November 9, 2008
Take the Quiz: Are You a Woman?
We all love quizzes, especially the grocery store check-out magazine variety. Are you a good lover? Do you eat enough vegetables? Do you have suicidal tendencies?
Well here is a quiz for you: Are you a Woman?
You might scoff. You might think that everyone knows what a woman is, and whether or not they are one. "Isn't it all in the genes?," you ask. No. Being a woman in today's America has little to do with genes, but everything to do with this quiz. So let's get started!
1. How many minutes do you spend in the shower each week?
a. 105
b. 50
c. 200
2. How much money do you spend on hair care, maintenance and products each month?
a. $3
b. $30
c. $80
3. Have you ever considered cutting off parts of your body?
a. yes
b. no
4. How many pairs of black shoes do you own?
a. 1
b. 3
c. 6
5. Are your eyelashes long enough?
a. yes
b. no
6. When do you know that you have had sex?
a. When you have had an orgasm
b. When your partner has had an orgasm
c. When you are told so
7. How many inches are there between your body and the inseam of your pants?
a. 0.0"
b. 0.5"
c. 3.0"
8. Does the sight of your own blood make you squeamish?
a. yes
b. no
9. How many items do you take with you when you leave the house?
a. 3
b. 8
c. 15
10. How do you avoid unwanted come-ons from others?
a. You don't - it's inevitable
b. Avoid eye contact
c. Get married
11. What do you fear losing most?
a. Sex
b. Power
c. Sex IS power
12. At work, what animal do you resemble?
a. a deer
b. a parrot
c. a horse
So, let's see how you did! Use the following chart to score your quiz.
1. a = 5 b = 0 c = 5
2. a = 0 b = 5 c = 5
3. a = 5 b = 0
4. a = 0 b = 5 c = 5
5. a = 0 b = 5
6. a = 0 b = 5 c = 5
7. a = 5 b = 5 c = 0
8. a = 0 b = 0
9. a = 0 b = 5 c = 5
10. a = 5 b = 0 c = 0
11. a = 0 b = 0 c = 5
12. a = 5 b = 5 c = 0
If you scored 55, you are a woman. If you scored anything less, you are probably not really a woman. You might think you are, but you are just not trying hard enough to fit the high American standards of womanhood. You have lots of work to do...
1. How many minutes do you spend in the shower each week?
Let's start with your personal hygiene. If you don't think you need to smell fresh and flavorful at all times, you are sorely mistaken. Only men can go days without a shower, or just rinsing the sweat off after a jog and calling it good. Women need to invest in their cleanliness. You will need to take at least one shower every single day, and that shower must be at least 15 minutes long - no quick in and out. There is much to be done: shampoo hair, condition hair, repeat, shave armpits, shave legs, wash body with soap, shave bikini line, scrub face with defoliator, pumice heels and elbows, apply post-shower moisturizer. If you think you can get by with only 30 minutes a week, you are obviously forgetting some of the essential components of being a lady.
2. How much money do you spend on hair care, maintenance and products each month?
Next, your hair. Women's hair is like a misbehaving child. Don't be afraid of tough love! If you want truly female hair, you must keep it on a strict schedule and be quick to correct it, because it is usually wrong. Does your hair have unsightly brown, or heaven forbid, grey hues? Does it stray from a ruler held vertically next to your ear? Does it exhibit dangerous signs of moving when you turn your head? Reforming miscreant hair is not cheap, and should not be tried at home! That's why we have professionals. They have studied long and hard to master the intricate science and technology of hair correction and funny stories. Only men have curly, wavy, brown or graying hair in the good old U S of A. If you don't want to be mistaken for a non-woman, don't skimp on the budget here: cut back on groceries instead (see question 3).
3. Have you ever considered cutting off parts of your body?
It is contrary to natural law for a true woman to love every part of her body. You must hate at least one anatomical part - enough to fantasize about cutting, sucking, molding, squeezing or stripping it into oblivion. More importantly, you must assume that all of your lovers hate it equally fervently. If you haven't already chosen your despised body part, there still might be time. Just grab the closest women's magazine to educate yourself on the myriad of despicable body parts and which are the most deserving of removal or surgical alteration. If you have already removed or reconfigured the repulsive feature, you should quickly start hating the next deformity on your list.
4. How many pairs of black shoes do you own?
Men are simple creatures and can live with simple wardrobes. Women cannot afford to be caught without a good pair of black shoes for every length of pants, skirt or dress she owns. Fashion is woman and therefore, woman is fashion. If the latest magazine cover model does not stare back from your mirror every morning, you can't seriously include yourself in the competitive market that is femininity. Furthermore, the world economy depends on us! Your total shoe count may vary, but you are living dangerously close to androgyny if you don't own at least 12 pair. You don't want to be responsible for the next stock market crash, do you?
5. Are your eyelashes long enough?
The bottom line is, your god-given facial features are not good enough. If you think your eyelashes are long, thick or black enough as they are, you are obviously still a child and shouldn't be taking this quiz. Actual women have climbed out of the pit of ignorance to understand that lips, eyes and cheeks were meant to be seen from a distance of four city blocks. Plain, flesh-colored flesh, eye-colored eyes and lip-colored lips are terribly juvenile. Graduation into full womanhood means fixing those silly mistakes god made. Real women have found more appropriate colors, like Red Hotz, Lightning Rod Blue and Blushing Rose.
6. When do you know that you have had sex?
Some people count the number of times they have had sex by the number of orgasms they have during sexual intercourse. Those people are called men. If women kept track of sexual episodes this way, there would be quite a few pregnant virgins out there. When counting incidences of "sex", the proper time for a women to add a tally mark to her belt is when her male partner has completed his climax. This number is useful for his statistical bragging rights later on, and that is all that matters.
7. How many inches are there between your body and the inseam of your pants?
You are not doing your womanly duty if every inch of your body does not telegraph through your clothing for all of mankind to ogle. If the inseam of your pants is not tight up against your labia, the crotch seam digging in between your buttocks, then you are neglecting the needs of a very large and important segment of the population - lechers. If your bra strap is not digging into your back, revealing a silhouette of hooks and clasps through your two-sizes-too-small Lycra-cling shirt; your shirt neck not scooped low enough to reveal the top 40% of your womanly orbs; the top of your butt crack not peeking out from your low-slung jeans, you are a disappointing specimen indeed. A woman's wardrobe should be a flashing, neon arrow focusing all eyes on the public property that is her sexual bounty. Don't worry about freezing in the winter - physical comfort is a small price to pay for the important job of sharing every private crevice of your body with horny men everywhere.
8. Does the sight of your own blood make you squeamish?
How often do you see your own blood? If you are a woman, it is likely once a month (more often if you forget your girlish limitations and try to use a tool once in awhile). Starting at 12 (and even younger now that we American girls are getting fatter, younger), nature's dreaded trick is played on women everywhere. In the name of the arguably lousy reproductive strategy that our species has devised, women are debilitated by blood dripping out of their southernmost orifice every 28 days, accompanied by migraines, cramps, expensive feminine products, soiled underwear, and a constant anxiousness as they wonder if the last tampon will hold through their big presentation at work. Not only do we have to deal with the gory spectacle of lumpy, black-brown uterine refuse sticking to our pubic hair and ruining our best white slacks without warning, but we are stigmatized for not being in full control of our internal bodily functions. The most embarrassing thing a teenage girl can imagine is visible evidence of her period (ever wonder where that "sweater around the waist" fashion originated?) Blood cascading down your naked legs in high school swimming class - now there is a memory you will never forget! Females are either menstrual or pre-menstrual for 50% of their lives, and it takes place during the 50 best years of their lives! This hormone-driven cycle also makes women the scapegoat: they are blamed for the conception of a fetus (she must be a loose woman), responsible for the bearing, delivering and feeding of a baby (he can't be expected to stick around), and disparaged if aborting it. If you ever feel like shouting, "IT'S NOT FAIR!", you must be a woman. However, this question was just an excuse to rant, so no points will be awarded for your answer, either way. Let's get back to the real quiz.
9. How many items do you take with you when you leave the house?
See questions #1, #5 and #8. Women must always be prepared for blood, sweat or tears - literally.
10. How do you avoid unwanted come-ons from others?
If you are a seasoned woman, you know that marriage is no shield to catcalls, requests for blowjobs and other subtle expressions of a man's interest in your body parts. Neither his wedding ring nor yours will stop a healthy, male co-worked from assessing your boobs, ass and legs. He is just trying to brighten your day, and anyway, you brought it on yourself by being such a tease. Be a real woman and appreciate the lust that runs in his veins - he can't help it! You say you are 76? You are missing an eye? Remember, as long as you have two X chromosomes, you are provocative. Understand how hot he gets thinking about your empty eye-socket: even wrinkled, liver-spotted flesh is erotic if you are a male. Don't fight it. When you boss asks you to get up on a stool and retrieve something high up on a shelf (you, wearing a mini skirt, and he, holding the stool), just realize that you were born a sex slave and will die one. It's the American way. When you are surprised by an unexpected moment of intimacy with a dirty, trench-coated stranger on the street, consider it "serving" your country.
11. What do you fear losing most?
If you haven't figured this out yet, the correct answer for a sensible American woman is "C - Sex is Power" - and it is the only power you are likely to have, so use it wisely.
12. At work, what animal do you resemble?
Horses are fast and powerful. Parrots are vociferous and fluorescent. Deer are, well, doe-eyed. If you were Boss, to which would you write the big paycheck? The horse, of course! That is why real women know how important it is to appear deer-like, balanced on artificial 6" stiletto "hooves," or flashy and bright like a tropical bird - so they can distract the horse, and divert his big paycheck. If you haven't yet learned to play fragile and helpless next to men's lime-lit sturdiness, you may be causing unnecessary inferiority complexes in your natural superiors at work. Working women should be easily distinguishable from the serious money earners so as not to be mistaken for competition. You should wear hot pink, fire engine red or turquoise blue to work (skin-tight reduces the risk of being taken seriously). Or, in a pinch, just grab some hazard tape and a traffic cone from a nearby construction site - as long as you have the shoes to match! Modern women know that their primary responsibility at work is to lighten the mood during the grueling nine to five - so much so that managers and bosses can forget they even exist. This works out wonderfully when bonus time rolls around. Just think, when your boss opens his fat bonus check, in his excitement he might invite you to dinner and drinks, and he may even let you sleep with him if you promise not to tell his wife. Who says hard work isn't rewarded? Go team!
Conclusion
Don't be too disheartened if you scored below 55 on this test and therefore can no longer consider yourself a female in this country. There is one last chance to reclaim your sexuality. Did you actually take the quiz? If so, you get a bonus 10 points because only women take quizzes to find out things about themselves they already know. If your score is still too low to qualify, you will be joining a large number of sexless beings, like amoebas, ants and certain trees, so you don't have to feel lonely as you sit alone in your apartment on a Saturday night. You may still be allowed to hang out with us real women once in a while. After all, our glamor and humpability is magnified three-fold when you are nearby for comparison. Just keep any hints of confidence or self esteem well hidden, or we might have to give you the boot...
Well here is a quiz for you: Are you a Woman?
You might scoff. You might think that everyone knows what a woman is, and whether or not they are one. "Isn't it all in the genes?," you ask. No. Being a woman in today's America has little to do with genes, but everything to do with this quiz. So let's get started!
1. How many minutes do you spend in the shower each week?
a. 105
b. 50
c. 200
2. How much money do you spend on hair care, maintenance and products each month?
a. $3
b. $30
c. $80
3. Have you ever considered cutting off parts of your body?
a. yes
b. no
4. How many pairs of black shoes do you own?
a. 1
b. 3
c. 6
5. Are your eyelashes long enough?
a. yes
b. no
6. When do you know that you have had sex?
a. When you have had an orgasm
b. When your partner has had an orgasm
c. When you are told so
7. How many inches are there between your body and the inseam of your pants?
a. 0.0"
b. 0.5"
c. 3.0"
8. Does the sight of your own blood make you squeamish?
a. yes
b. no
9. How many items do you take with you when you leave the house?
a. 3
b. 8
c. 15
10. How do you avoid unwanted come-ons from others?
a. You don't - it's inevitable
b. Avoid eye contact
c. Get married
11. What do you fear losing most?
a. Sex
b. Power
c. Sex IS power
12. At work, what animal do you resemble?
a. a deer
b. a parrot
c. a horse
So, let's see how you did! Use the following chart to score your quiz.
1. a = 5 b = 0 c = 5
2. a = 0 b = 5 c = 5
3. a = 5 b = 0
4. a = 0 b = 5 c = 5
5. a = 0 b = 5
6. a = 0 b = 5 c = 5
7. a = 5 b = 5 c = 0
8. a = 0 b = 0
9. a = 0 b = 5 c = 5
10. a = 5 b = 0 c = 0
11. a = 0 b = 0 c = 5
12. a = 5 b = 5 c = 0
If you scored 55, you are a woman. If you scored anything less, you are probably not really a woman. You might think you are, but you are just not trying hard enough to fit the high American standards of womanhood. You have lots of work to do...
1. How many minutes do you spend in the shower each week?
Let's start with your personal hygiene. If you don't think you need to smell fresh and flavorful at all times, you are sorely mistaken. Only men can go days without a shower, or just rinsing the sweat off after a jog and calling it good. Women need to invest in their cleanliness. You will need to take at least one shower every single day, and that shower must be at least 15 minutes long - no quick in and out. There is much to be done: shampoo hair, condition hair, repeat, shave armpits, shave legs, wash body with soap, shave bikini line, scrub face with defoliator, pumice heels and elbows, apply post-shower moisturizer. If you think you can get by with only 30 minutes a week, you are obviously forgetting some of the essential components of being a lady.
2. How much money do you spend on hair care, maintenance and products each month?
Next, your hair. Women's hair is like a misbehaving child. Don't be afraid of tough love! If you want truly female hair, you must keep it on a strict schedule and be quick to correct it, because it is usually wrong. Does your hair have unsightly brown, or heaven forbid, grey hues? Does it stray from a ruler held vertically next to your ear? Does it exhibit dangerous signs of moving when you turn your head? Reforming miscreant hair is not cheap, and should not be tried at home! That's why we have professionals. They have studied long and hard to master the intricate science and technology of hair correction and funny stories. Only men have curly, wavy, brown or graying hair in the good old U S of A. If you don't want to be mistaken for a non-woman, don't skimp on the budget here: cut back on groceries instead (see question 3).
3. Have you ever considered cutting off parts of your body?
It is contrary to natural law for a true woman to love every part of her body. You must hate at least one anatomical part - enough to fantasize about cutting, sucking, molding, squeezing or stripping it into oblivion. More importantly, you must assume that all of your lovers hate it equally fervently. If you haven't already chosen your despised body part, there still might be time. Just grab the closest women's magazine to educate yourself on the myriad of despicable body parts and which are the most deserving of removal or surgical alteration. If you have already removed or reconfigured the repulsive feature, you should quickly start hating the next deformity on your list.
4. How many pairs of black shoes do you own?
Men are simple creatures and can live with simple wardrobes. Women cannot afford to be caught without a good pair of black shoes for every length of pants, skirt or dress she owns. Fashion is woman and therefore, woman is fashion. If the latest magazine cover model does not stare back from your mirror every morning, you can't seriously include yourself in the competitive market that is femininity. Furthermore, the world economy depends on us! Your total shoe count may vary, but you are living dangerously close to androgyny if you don't own at least 12 pair. You don't want to be responsible for the next stock market crash, do you?
5. Are your eyelashes long enough?
The bottom line is, your god-given facial features are not good enough. If you think your eyelashes are long, thick or black enough as they are, you are obviously still a child and shouldn't be taking this quiz. Actual women have climbed out of the pit of ignorance to understand that lips, eyes and cheeks were meant to be seen from a distance of four city blocks. Plain, flesh-colored flesh, eye-colored eyes and lip-colored lips are terribly juvenile. Graduation into full womanhood means fixing those silly mistakes god made. Real women have found more appropriate colors, like Red Hotz, Lightning Rod Blue and Blushing Rose.
6. When do you know that you have had sex?
Some people count the number of times they have had sex by the number of orgasms they have during sexual intercourse. Those people are called men. If women kept track of sexual episodes this way, there would be quite a few pregnant virgins out there. When counting incidences of "sex", the proper time for a women to add a tally mark to her belt is when her male partner has completed his climax. This number is useful for his statistical bragging rights later on, and that is all that matters.
7. How many inches are there between your body and the inseam of your pants?
You are not doing your womanly duty if every inch of your body does not telegraph through your clothing for all of mankind to ogle. If the inseam of your pants is not tight up against your labia, the crotch seam digging in between your buttocks, then you are neglecting the needs of a very large and important segment of the population - lechers. If your bra strap is not digging into your back, revealing a silhouette of hooks and clasps through your two-sizes-too-small Lycra-cling shirt; your shirt neck not scooped low enough to reveal the top 40% of your womanly orbs; the top of your butt crack not peeking out from your low-slung jeans, you are a disappointing specimen indeed. A woman's wardrobe should be a flashing, neon arrow focusing all eyes on the public property that is her sexual bounty. Don't worry about freezing in the winter - physical comfort is a small price to pay for the important job of sharing every private crevice of your body with horny men everywhere.
8. Does the sight of your own blood make you squeamish?
How often do you see your own blood? If you are a woman, it is likely once a month (more often if you forget your girlish limitations and try to use a tool once in awhile). Starting at 12 (and even younger now that we American girls are getting fatter, younger), nature's dreaded trick is played on women everywhere. In the name of the arguably lousy reproductive strategy that our species has devised, women are debilitated by blood dripping out of their southernmost orifice every 28 days, accompanied by migraines, cramps, expensive feminine products, soiled underwear, and a constant anxiousness as they wonder if the last tampon will hold through their big presentation at work. Not only do we have to deal with the gory spectacle of lumpy, black-brown uterine refuse sticking to our pubic hair and ruining our best white slacks without warning, but we are stigmatized for not being in full control of our internal bodily functions. The most embarrassing thing a teenage girl can imagine is visible evidence of her period (ever wonder where that "sweater around the waist" fashion originated?) Blood cascading down your naked legs in high school swimming class - now there is a memory you will never forget! Females are either menstrual or pre-menstrual for 50% of their lives, and it takes place during the 50 best years of their lives! This hormone-driven cycle also makes women the scapegoat: they are blamed for the conception of a fetus (she must be a loose woman), responsible for the bearing, delivering and feeding of a baby (he can't be expected to stick around), and disparaged if aborting it. If you ever feel like shouting, "IT'S NOT FAIR!", you must be a woman. However, this question was just an excuse to rant, so no points will be awarded for your answer, either way. Let's get back to the real quiz.
9. How many items do you take with you when you leave the house?
See questions #1, #5 and #8. Women must always be prepared for blood, sweat or tears - literally.
10. How do you avoid unwanted come-ons from others?
If you are a seasoned woman, you know that marriage is no shield to catcalls, requests for blowjobs and other subtle expressions of a man's interest in your body parts. Neither his wedding ring nor yours will stop a healthy, male co-worked from assessing your boobs, ass and legs. He is just trying to brighten your day, and anyway, you brought it on yourself by being such a tease. Be a real woman and appreciate the lust that runs in his veins - he can't help it! You say you are 76? You are missing an eye? Remember, as long as you have two X chromosomes, you are provocative. Understand how hot he gets thinking about your empty eye-socket: even wrinkled, liver-spotted flesh is erotic if you are a male. Don't fight it. When you boss asks you to get up on a stool and retrieve something high up on a shelf (you, wearing a mini skirt, and he, holding the stool), just realize that you were born a sex slave and will die one. It's the American way. When you are surprised by an unexpected moment of intimacy with a dirty, trench-coated stranger on the street, consider it "serving" your country.
11. What do you fear losing most?
If you haven't figured this out yet, the correct answer for a sensible American woman is "C - Sex is Power" - and it is the only power you are likely to have, so use it wisely.
12. At work, what animal do you resemble?
Horses are fast and powerful. Parrots are vociferous and fluorescent. Deer are, well, doe-eyed. If you were Boss, to which would you write the big paycheck? The horse, of course! That is why real women know how important it is to appear deer-like, balanced on artificial 6" stiletto "hooves," or flashy and bright like a tropical bird - so they can distract the horse, and divert his big paycheck. If you haven't yet learned to play fragile and helpless next to men's lime-lit sturdiness, you may be causing unnecessary inferiority complexes in your natural superiors at work. Working women should be easily distinguishable from the serious money earners so as not to be mistaken for competition. You should wear hot pink, fire engine red or turquoise blue to work (skin-tight reduces the risk of being taken seriously). Or, in a pinch, just grab some hazard tape and a traffic cone from a nearby construction site - as long as you have the shoes to match! Modern women know that their primary responsibility at work is to lighten the mood during the grueling nine to five - so much so that managers and bosses can forget they even exist. This works out wonderfully when bonus time rolls around. Just think, when your boss opens his fat bonus check, in his excitement he might invite you to dinner and drinks, and he may even let you sleep with him if you promise not to tell his wife. Who says hard work isn't rewarded? Go team!
Conclusion
Don't be too disheartened if you scored below 55 on this test and therefore can no longer consider yourself a female in this country. There is one last chance to reclaim your sexuality. Did you actually take the quiz? If so, you get a bonus 10 points because only women take quizzes to find out things about themselves they already know. If your score is still too low to qualify, you will be joining a large number of sexless beings, like amoebas, ants and certain trees, so you don't have to feel lonely as you sit alone in your apartment on a Saturday night. You may still be allowed to hang out with us real women once in a while. After all, our glamor and humpability is magnified three-fold when you are nearby for comparison. Just keep any hints of confidence or self esteem well hidden, or we might have to give you the boot...
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
The Circle of Life
What goes around comes around. That is what they say. Things come in waves, circuits, cycles, rhythms.
Like the stock market. Today, I lost $30,000. But in the 90's I probably made some money. I wouldn't know, because I follow the stockbroker's orders and "don't look" pretty much all of the time. I will look when I'm 50 and starting to plan the next half of my life. I'll be working full-time, of course, because the account balance will only cover about 1/5th of the 100 years I intend to live. The Dow is a merry go round. Good thing I don't get motion sickness.
Like politics. Democrats, democrats, democrats. Today's seemingly liberal boom is the nation's reaction to 10 years of self-righteous isolationists holing up and taking care of number one. The tide has turned. Now those same egotists aren't so sure of themselves. They are scrambling, trying to look busy as their employers search for ways to increase efficiencies. The math-illiterates shout, "Me! Me!" as the federal government hands out free money - Lo and behold, their adjustable rate mortgage has surpassed their take home pay! Angry cries of "Less government!" and "Let the market decide" were sad pseudonyms for "Gimme Gimme Gimme!" not so long ago. Now we hear the indignant grumble, "The government should do something about this," as pig farms and Bill Sizemore move in next door.
It makes me feel sheepish, and nervous, to think that I too will change my tune someday. Perhaps I already have. In college, didn't I say I was going to work my way around the world, transforming myself into a truly global citizen? Hadn't I prided myself on eating 16 cent ramen and living on $100 a month? I seem to remember that my life goals included sitting in trees and my values centered on fierce, feminist independence. Had I actually written a paper in college on the redundancy of males? By my young-person standards, the me of today would be boring, stodgy and stiff; too concerned with money, prestige, trophy accomplishments and the tidiness of my lawn; a traitor who married a white male, moved back to my home town and added to the overpopulation problem by reproducing - twice!
What if, by the time I am 60, I become my exact opposite? My 20's were marked by an expansionist mind, thirsting for different, craving newness. My 30's, by accepting and living the accepted norm. Will I be reduced in my 40's and 50's to a forever narrowing mind and an ever-increasing fear of the unknown? (I don't own a cell phone or an ipod - it could be an omen.) I cringe when I think about myself sitting in for my 94-year old grandmother - and it isn't the wrinkles that have me shaking. It's the locking my doors against "those crazy young people," rejecting strange new ideas, battling to remain the same.
But, perhaps the cyclical nature of life will roll over me...and keep on going. Maybe my selfish phase has come and gone. Perhaps I have hit the apex and am already moving back around towards the idealism and open-mindedness of 20 years ago. If the Dow goes up and down - and then up again - why can't I? After all, my grandmother - that little old lady who is scared of mohawks and piercings - she chats with her family online and has e-accounts at the bank and the department stores. There may be hope for me yet.
Like the stock market. Today, I lost $30,000. But in the 90's I probably made some money. I wouldn't know, because I follow the stockbroker's orders and "don't look" pretty much all of the time. I will look when I'm 50 and starting to plan the next half of my life. I'll be working full-time, of course, because the account balance will only cover about 1/5th of the 100 years I intend to live. The Dow is a merry go round. Good thing I don't get motion sickness.
Like politics. Democrats, democrats, democrats. Today's seemingly liberal boom is the nation's reaction to 10 years of self-righteous isolationists holing up and taking care of number one. The tide has turned. Now those same egotists aren't so sure of themselves. They are scrambling, trying to look busy as their employers search for ways to increase efficiencies. The math-illiterates shout, "Me! Me!" as the federal government hands out free money - Lo and behold, their adjustable rate mortgage has surpassed their take home pay! Angry cries of "Less government!" and "Let the market decide" were sad pseudonyms for "Gimme Gimme Gimme!" not so long ago. Now we hear the indignant grumble, "The government should do something about this," as pig farms and Bill Sizemore move in next door.
It makes me feel sheepish, and nervous, to think that I too will change my tune someday. Perhaps I already have. In college, didn't I say I was going to work my way around the world, transforming myself into a truly global citizen? Hadn't I prided myself on eating 16 cent ramen and living on $100 a month? I seem to remember that my life goals included sitting in trees and my values centered on fierce, feminist independence. Had I actually written a paper in college on the redundancy of males? By my young-person standards, the me of today would be boring, stodgy and stiff; too concerned with money, prestige, trophy accomplishments and the tidiness of my lawn; a traitor who married a white male, moved back to my home town and added to the overpopulation problem by reproducing - twice!
What if, by the time I am 60, I become my exact opposite? My 20's were marked by an expansionist mind, thirsting for different, craving newness. My 30's, by accepting and living the accepted norm. Will I be reduced in my 40's and 50's to a forever narrowing mind and an ever-increasing fear of the unknown? (I don't own a cell phone or an ipod - it could be an omen.) I cringe when I think about myself sitting in for my 94-year old grandmother - and it isn't the wrinkles that have me shaking. It's the locking my doors against "those crazy young people," rejecting strange new ideas, battling to remain the same.
But, perhaps the cyclical nature of life will roll over me...and keep on going. Maybe my selfish phase has come and gone. Perhaps I have hit the apex and am already moving back around towards the idealism and open-mindedness of 20 years ago. If the Dow goes up and down - and then up again - why can't I? After all, my grandmother - that little old lady who is scared of mohawks and piercings - she chats with her family online and has e-accounts at the bank and the department stores. There may be hope for me yet.
Saturday, September 20, 2008
A List of Meaningful Kisses
My oldest daughter is ten years old. She has reached the age where she feels obligated to gently rebel against her parents in order to assert her nascent independence, like any normal, healthy child. To my dismay, her tool for testing the waters of adolescence has been to forbid me from kissing her. Our family has had a good-night ritual for most of the years she and her sister have been alive. We read together as a family, and then each of us, my husband and I, tote one of the girls to bed (this part is optional now because Katie does, after all, weigh 70 pounds!), we tuck them in, give them a hug and a kiss, and then pass each other in the hall as we repeat the ceremony with the other child.
At some point, Katie made it known to me that the kiss portion of this routine was no longer allowed. I would thereafter be invited to carry her (ha!), tuck her in, hug her goodnight - even share a quiet conversation about the day just passed or the next to come - but I was prohibited from kissing her sweet curly head as I enclosed her in my arms. Being a creature of habit, and lulled by her lovely daughterliness, I sometimes forgot the cruel rule. Burying my face in the hair on top of her head during our good-night hug, the small smacking press of my lips in the dark gave me away. My punishment would be no hug the next night.
At one point, I was carrying a balance of 21 nights without hugs because of my petulant insistence on kissing her. Somehow, I could not draw forth the required discipline. My lips were right there, next to her soft, apple cheek. I couldn't resist.
The human lips are said to have more nerve endings than any other part of the body. Within the brain, they are connected with both the language and emotional centers and with the part that controls the fingertips, thus combining communication, inspiration and discovery in a way no other part of the body does. No wonder kissing is such a phenomenon.
During a particularly jaded time during my college years, I considered romantic kissing between a man and a woman as a way for the man to commandeer the woman's attention, distract her, and block her vision long enough for him to remove a few pieces of her clothing. While this may actually be true for many fraternity boys, I also remember the overwhelming wonder I experienced as a girl, passing my lips over the smooth, warm face of my high-school sweetheart. More delicate than fingers brushing aside his hair and more intimate than cheeks touching during the slow song at the high school dance, I unabashedly explored him from ear to ear and from chin to eyelid with soft, inquiring lips. Regardless that we were standing in the parking lot of Winchell's Donut Shop in broad daylight with cars coming and going all around us, I thought it was the most romantic thing I had even experienced.
My first actual kiss, however, was a terrible disappointment. I was 13. I had a wild crush on Martin. It was Halloween and we were much too old to be out trick-or-treating. But, being at the age where one tries desperately to have his cake and eat it too, we were children for the free candy, but adult enough to foray into the world of sexual relationships. Or at least he was, and he brought me along.
Martin had invited his two buddies, and my sisters also came out with us. On one of the darker, shadowy streets, Martin's friends suddenly seemed to rush ahead, driving the girls forward at a quick step, but Martin slowed down to a snail's pace. We must have been holding hands, because I was already embarrassed, but suddenly he stopped and turned towards me. My heart was racing. I was dressed as a street-walker or some other terribly inappropriate costume for a girl who had just started menstruating maybe a month before. This boy was the most exciting and lovely boy in the school as far as I was concerned. He was intriguing, smart, sassy, tough and scrawny in a totally sexy way. He had heard I had a crush on him. He and his friends had devised this plan. He was kissing me! Through the thick makeup and around the tacky jewelry, his lips were touching mine. His tongue was reaching inside my unpractised mouth. And all I could think about was...slugs!
I had had a often-repeated nightmare about slugs, millions of them crawling over every square inch of space, coming over the fence at my grandmother's house, slowly teeming like a swarm of locusts, moving at a snail's (ha ha) pace! It was a terrifying dream. And the underside of a tongue - the part visible when you lift it up to touch the tip of your nose - looks like a slug. Or at least I imagined it so at that moment.
So, as his tongue swished around between my tight jaws, I relived the childhood nightmare. The slugs had made it past the fence, past the apple tree and I was frozen, riveted to the ground as they slimed their way up my body and into my mouth. Poor Martin. He might have been a good kisser - I couldn't say.
There have been a number of uncomfortable kisses in my life. The old, lecherous, great-uncle, obviously enjoying himself far more than acceptable as he kissed my ten-year-old cheek and patted my young rump. The out-of-touch stepfather who thought it was funny to slip in a little tongue once in awhile as a surprise. Even the most important kiss of my life - my wedding day "You May Kiss the Bride" kiss - was performed in front of an audience of 200. My husband and I felt called upon to make it intimate, yet fit for public consumption, poignant, but not too sloppy. I think we rehearsed it beforehand.
Kissing might seem like a modern cultural invention. No one imagines cavemen and cavewomen kissing like Rhett Butler and Scarlet O'Hara in Gone with the Wind. But passionate, erotic kissing can feel instinctual and animalistic - like eating, consuming, inhaling. You want to inhabit your lover's body, sustain it, feed it and be fed by it. During lovemaking, kissing connects and attaches you to your lover above, just as below. Highly sensitive lips touching and exploring during emotionally charged moments makes perfect sense, even before homo sapiens and their social rules got so complicated (poor Scarlet).
Even kissing babies is instinctual. What mother doesn't nuzzle her young? Cows do it, cats do it, even kangaroos and rats do it. Pushing ones lips against a small, warm, soft body that you are hormonally programmed to love is a natural proclivity. That spot right under the baby's ear and right above her neck - the spot vampires also gravitate towards - is like a bullseye for mothers, aunties and grandmas. I have kissed, snuggled and caressed this spot with my mothering lips too many times to count. What joy it brings!
Growing up, I don't remember a lot of kissing in my family. It always kind of grossed me out to see other teenagers' mothers kissing them (especially on the lips - a custom that still gives me the willies). But now that I am a mother myself, I can't imagine NOT kissing and hugging my girls. That is why Katie's ban on kissing was such a blow. I enjoy kissing her. It demonstrates my affection for her and my willingness to support her emotionally. And it just feels good.
I toed the line for 3 months. I respected the proclamation. I followed her rule (sometimes I negotiated a kiss before she slept over at a friend's house to make up for the hug I would miss that night). And then, one night, I heard it - the sound of smacking lips! A kiss!
My husband, tucking Katie in, said goodnight, hugged her and... gave her a kiss!
I said, "Wait a minute!"
"What?" said Katie.
"How come Daddy gets to kiss you and I don't?" My voice was booming with mock anger. "What kind of a trick have you been playing on me? All these months I haven't been allowed, but Daddy has? That's not fair!"
The silence seemed to indicate that I had gained an advantage. I decided to make my own proclamation: "From now on, since Daddy gets to kiss you, I get to kiss you too!"
And she didn't argue.
At some point, Katie made it known to me that the kiss portion of this routine was no longer allowed. I would thereafter be invited to carry her (ha!), tuck her in, hug her goodnight - even share a quiet conversation about the day just passed or the next to come - but I was prohibited from kissing her sweet curly head as I enclosed her in my arms. Being a creature of habit, and lulled by her lovely daughterliness, I sometimes forgot the cruel rule. Burying my face in the hair on top of her head during our good-night hug, the small smacking press of my lips in the dark gave me away. My punishment would be no hug the next night.
At one point, I was carrying a balance of 21 nights without hugs because of my petulant insistence on kissing her. Somehow, I could not draw forth the required discipline. My lips were right there, next to her soft, apple cheek. I couldn't resist.
The human lips are said to have more nerve endings than any other part of the body. Within the brain, they are connected with both the language and emotional centers and with the part that controls the fingertips, thus combining communication, inspiration and discovery in a way no other part of the body does. No wonder kissing is such a phenomenon.
During a particularly jaded time during my college years, I considered romantic kissing between a man and a woman as a way for the man to commandeer the woman's attention, distract her, and block her vision long enough for him to remove a few pieces of her clothing. While this may actually be true for many fraternity boys, I also remember the overwhelming wonder I experienced as a girl, passing my lips over the smooth, warm face of my high-school sweetheart. More delicate than fingers brushing aside his hair and more intimate than cheeks touching during the slow song at the high school dance, I unabashedly explored him from ear to ear and from chin to eyelid with soft, inquiring lips. Regardless that we were standing in the parking lot of Winchell's Donut Shop in broad daylight with cars coming and going all around us, I thought it was the most romantic thing I had even experienced.
My first actual kiss, however, was a terrible disappointment. I was 13. I had a wild crush on Martin. It was Halloween and we were much too old to be out trick-or-treating. But, being at the age where one tries desperately to have his cake and eat it too, we were children for the free candy, but adult enough to foray into the world of sexual relationships. Or at least he was, and he brought me along.
Martin had invited his two buddies, and my sisters also came out with us. On one of the darker, shadowy streets, Martin's friends suddenly seemed to rush ahead, driving the girls forward at a quick step, but Martin slowed down to a snail's pace. We must have been holding hands, because I was already embarrassed, but suddenly he stopped and turned towards me. My heart was racing. I was dressed as a street-walker or some other terribly inappropriate costume for a girl who had just started menstruating maybe a month before. This boy was the most exciting and lovely boy in the school as far as I was concerned. He was intriguing, smart, sassy, tough and scrawny in a totally sexy way. He had heard I had a crush on him. He and his friends had devised this plan. He was kissing me! Through the thick makeup and around the tacky jewelry, his lips were touching mine. His tongue was reaching inside my unpractised mouth. And all I could think about was...slugs!
I had had a often-repeated nightmare about slugs, millions of them crawling over every square inch of space, coming over the fence at my grandmother's house, slowly teeming like a swarm of locusts, moving at a snail's (ha ha) pace! It was a terrifying dream. And the underside of a tongue - the part visible when you lift it up to touch the tip of your nose - looks like a slug. Or at least I imagined it so at that moment.
So, as his tongue swished around between my tight jaws, I relived the childhood nightmare. The slugs had made it past the fence, past the apple tree and I was frozen, riveted to the ground as they slimed their way up my body and into my mouth. Poor Martin. He might have been a good kisser - I couldn't say.
There have been a number of uncomfortable kisses in my life. The old, lecherous, great-uncle, obviously enjoying himself far more than acceptable as he kissed my ten-year-old cheek and patted my young rump. The out-of-touch stepfather who thought it was funny to slip in a little tongue once in awhile as a surprise. Even the most important kiss of my life - my wedding day "You May Kiss the Bride" kiss - was performed in front of an audience of 200. My husband and I felt called upon to make it intimate, yet fit for public consumption, poignant, but not too sloppy. I think we rehearsed it beforehand.
Kissing might seem like a modern cultural invention. No one imagines cavemen and cavewomen kissing like Rhett Butler and Scarlet O'Hara in Gone with the Wind. But passionate, erotic kissing can feel instinctual and animalistic - like eating, consuming, inhaling. You want to inhabit your lover's body, sustain it, feed it and be fed by it. During lovemaking, kissing connects and attaches you to your lover above, just as below. Highly sensitive lips touching and exploring during emotionally charged moments makes perfect sense, even before homo sapiens and their social rules got so complicated (poor Scarlet).
Even kissing babies is instinctual. What mother doesn't nuzzle her young? Cows do it, cats do it, even kangaroos and rats do it. Pushing ones lips against a small, warm, soft body that you are hormonally programmed to love is a natural proclivity. That spot right under the baby's ear and right above her neck - the spot vampires also gravitate towards - is like a bullseye for mothers, aunties and grandmas. I have kissed, snuggled and caressed this spot with my mothering lips too many times to count. What joy it brings!
Growing up, I don't remember a lot of kissing in my family. It always kind of grossed me out to see other teenagers' mothers kissing them (especially on the lips - a custom that still gives me the willies). But now that I am a mother myself, I can't imagine NOT kissing and hugging my girls. That is why Katie's ban on kissing was such a blow. I enjoy kissing her. It demonstrates my affection for her and my willingness to support her emotionally. And it just feels good.
I toed the line for 3 months. I respected the proclamation. I followed her rule (sometimes I negotiated a kiss before she slept over at a friend's house to make up for the hug I would miss that night). And then, one night, I heard it - the sound of smacking lips! A kiss!
My husband, tucking Katie in, said goodnight, hugged her and... gave her a kiss!
I said, "Wait a minute!"
"What?" said Katie.
"How come Daddy gets to kiss you and I don't?" My voice was booming with mock anger. "What kind of a trick have you been playing on me? All these months I haven't been allowed, but Daddy has? That's not fair!"
The silence seemed to indicate that I had gained an advantage. I decided to make my own proclamation: "From now on, since Daddy gets to kiss you, I get to kiss you too!"
And she didn't argue.
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