March 3
Why, hello March! How you doing? The past 4 days or so the weather has been deceptively awesome, but I'm not fooled. March can be an asshole, there are 28 days left and I'm just waiting for everything to fall apart. That's right March, I've got my eye on you. You can't trick me year after year. Oh, no no! I'm keeping my snow shovel out JUST IN CASE.
For the past two days, I've been in a weirdly good mood. I can't actually put my finger on where the mood is from, but I'm sure that some factors contributing to it are as follows:
1.) fancy bright red nails;
2.) making a few newfriends;
3.) getting new hair (more about that later);
4.) the nice weather;
5.) nice things happening to a few of my friends;
6.) that midget show on Fox;
7.) pistachio torte;
8.) the cool, amazing and totally unexpected care package Becky sent me!(seriously! she sent me a care package with a monkey and a scarf and some candles and nailpolish and body spray and chocolate and beads. Truly, all of my favorite things!)
9.) The car I see every morning when I walk from the parking lot to my building. It's a black rice rocket with red decals in the always popular "a GIANT CHILD WITH A GIANT CRAYON SCRIBBLED ALL OVER MY CAR!" style, a giNORMOUS metal erector set looking spoiler that's got to be bolted into the trunk, low profile tires with SPINNING rims, and really sweet looking red fender flares. The thing that makes the car stand out for me though, is the "TOYOTA" decal across the windshield and what makes THAT truly spectaular is the fact that they replaced the Os with, heh, skull and crossbone stickers. No shit, I snicker EVERY TIME I walk past it. On a gloomy morning, that car turns my frown upside down.
10.) This joke: What do you get when you cross a pirate and a pedophile? ARRRRRRR Kelly.
One of the things I've almost never talked about on this page are my own medical problems. I mean, I don't have a lot of problems, but I do have one and it's really sort of plagued me since 1991. I don't talk about it to people who don't know me because it's embarrassing to me, and I'm fairly sure not EVERYONE who reads me loves me (although I can certainly pretend you all do, but I'd definitely be lying if I said that I only read the pages of people I really liked), and I don't entirely relish the idea of strangers giggling about my issues, but whatever. Here you go: I get bald spots. I have alopecia areata. My case is extremly mild, but it's still the thing I'm most self concious about, more than my weight (which, you know, whatever. I look how I look. Some people happen to think I'm hot), more than anything.
Alopecia is an auto immune problem. Basically, my scalp treats my hair as a foreign body and rejects it, resulting in bald spots. It's treatable, but not cureable. Every month or so, I trek over to the dermatologist, who injects the spots with a steroid solution. Over and over and over again. It's worse when I'm stressed. When you're stressed, maybe you over eat. When I get stressed, my hair falls out in giant clumps. You win.
Some years are worse than others. I've gone for a while without getting them. Mostly, it's an all the time thing, and I just have to keep my hair in such a way that it isn't noticeable. I haven't had a hair cut since last June. I'm hesitant to go to a salon because I'm afraid the stylists will laugh at me. I mean, sure, I am not the only person in the world with this condition, and as I said, my case is EXTREMELY mild compared to other people (some people get Alopecia Totalis, which effects ALL the hair on your body. Good for legs, underarms and crotches [if a naked crotch is your thing], but bad for heads and eyebrows) and when I keep THAT in mind, I know how lucky I am, but you know, I don't FEEL lucky. I don't feel lucky when I'm getting my scalp injected. I don't feel lucky when I put my hair in a pony tail EVERY DAY. I don't feel lucky on the very rare days I wear my hair down and I constantly worry about wind.
The past two years have been particularly bad for my hair. Spots grow in and just when I get comfortable, it all falls back out. It's something I deal with, but am never going to be able to accept. Every time I go for injections, I sit in my car and cry a little. I'm not sharing this because I want anyone to feel sorry for me, of course. I'm just sharing it because it's part of ME, and I feel plenty sorry for myself about it. So sorry that I'm not sure there would be room for anyone else's sorry in there. I've got pity covered.
Anyway, I share this story because over the past few months, I've been looking into ways to cover the hair loss, and that lead me directly to this place. Mind you, the page is about as horrible as a page can be, but I didn't think I wanted to bring my patchy head into a fancy salon to have some snotty skinny woman in heels touch me. After a discussion with my Mom, who told me she'd pay for it, I made an appointment with Lucinda.
I drove to her place, not having any idea what to expect. I definitely didn't anticipate Mr. I Just Left Happy Hour behind me for MOST OF THE TRIP (note: if you are driving on a road that has one lane going one way and the other going the other way and the person behind you tries to pass you on your right where there is NO LANE and then overcompenates for the mistake by swerving wildly into the ONCOMING TRAFFIC, you know you're in front of a drunk). I didn't expect the place to be in the woman's HOUSE. I didn't expect her Pekanese to launch itself into my lap. I didn't expect the wigs or Ms. Lucinda herself. She is all of 4'7", about 65, MISSING THE TIP OF HER THUMB, and has thinning hair. She told me that, as she made me feel it. "See this?!" she said, as she pointed at her loopy bun "it's NOT MY HAIR!!". "You don't say!!!!" I replied.
There were photographs of her doing different athletic things on the wall, every photo saying "I have thinning hair, and LOOK! I can still SKI!" and "Sure I wear a wig, but by god, I KAYAK!!" She held up a strip of hair to my head. "This is what YOU need. This will give you fullness AND cover your spots!" I was both scared and encouraged. "I'll take it!" Now, I have an appointment for Friday, and the next time you see me, I'm going to be all Britney Spears.
So there you go. New hair. Bald spots. You all now know my most embarrassing secret. Use the knowledge well.
the other day - home - email - soon