Two roads diverged

When I was in university I wrote a paper comparing ideas from T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land" and W.B. Yeats' "The Second Coming". I has studied and enjoyed both poems in my Literature of the 20th Century class and wanted to share my excitement with the world...or at least with the professor. I'm not entirely sure what I wrote about, but the paper had something to do with Yeat's lines

The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity

I was ridiculously proud of my essay. It wasn't one of the suggestions from the professor, and possibly nothing anyone had thought of before in the history of humankind! (Or at least I couldn't find any books or articles written on the topic at the U of R library during the 5 minutes I looked. Hey, back then that was considered serious research!)

When I received my paper back, written on the crisp, white cover page in dark red ink was this: "Very well done. You are a interesting and divergent thinker." Of course, I immediately had to go look up what "divergent" meant and was much pleased by what I read ("Using a variety of premises, esp. unfamiliar premises, as bases for inference, and avoiding common limiting assumptions in making deductions").

Later I excelled at comparing Holden Caulfied (from Catcher in the Rye) to Huckleberry Finn, and green policy in North America and Europe. I struggled through the close reading we had to do in my New Criticism class, and completely wrote off the need for accuracy in my chemistry lab. 14 mL? 16mL? Close enough.

One of my favourite projects from my education degree came from the Philosophy of Education class I took. I chose to present on a South American educator who believed everything in schools is political - from the language we use to the topics and books we study. As I researched my presentation, I learned that because females tend to be more "people pleasing" and males tend to be more "self centered," much of what we study is chosen because it will hold boys' attention.

We want children to learn how to classify things and so we study dinosaurs. Why not flowers or cats? Because we'd lose the boys. In high school we read books like Fahrenheit 451, Lord of the Flies, Animal Farm, Flowers for Algernon...well, I could go on. Yes, these are all fabulous books, but they're also all very male-centric. You know, to keep the boys' interest.

Making these sorts of discoveries and connections and then sharing them with other people made me feel alive.

Since university I haven't had much chance to think. My job is one that forces me to focus on details and minutia, which is possibly why I'm so dissatisfied doing what I'm doing. The other night, though, I got the chance to dust off those old skills again. I was at a pub, enjoying some tasty beer with friends and I managed to piss everyone off.

My friends were oozing superlatives about the TV show True Blood (especially the 2nd season) and the movie Fight Club. I offered up the extremely unpopular opinion that the former ended up being about nothing more than a pathetic, deluded woman searching for a husband, and the latter? Oy. Don't even get me started! They make this cool, anti-consumer, screw the man movie and then they make the character spewing these beliefs bat-shit crazy. And what does he do to make his big statement? He blows up CREDIT CARD COMPANIES! Oh great - now all of us who racked up our cards uncontrollably can go out and do it AGAIN! You can bet that if all of a sudden my credit card debt was at $0, I'd be out there buying a bed - one that had never been owned by anyone else before. Can you imagine how luxurious that would be?

Anyway, I digress. It felt great to use the ol' noggin and piss people off again. I felt that familiar tingle of coming alive. Now if I could just find a job that allowed me to do this.


Cubicle farm

Foxy thoughts, pt 2

Happy Thanksgiving, fellow Canadians! I know that I should wax poetic about all the wonderful things in my life, but I'm always going on and on here about how grateful I am for absolutely everything. It's sickening, really. So I'm going to make it opposite day today and give you miscellaneous foxy rants.

(See here for an explanation of what makes these foxy.)

Queen of the Parking Lot

• In Captain Corelli's Mandolin when Nicolas Cage kisses Penélope Cruz, it looks disturbingly like he's going to EAT HER FACE OFF. He's kissing her with such enthusiasm and she's just so freaking little that I thought for a moment it had turned into Captain Corelli's Zombie Musical War Movie. No, really! Watch it again (if you can stand it). Braaaaaaaaaiiiiiins...

The only good wasp is a dead wasp

• Girls that kiss other girls and like it generally don't then go on to sing those exact words. Usually those are the girls who are just doing it to make their boyfriends all hot and bothered. The rest of us are too busy trying to get to second base.

Back alley treasures

• I know that democracy is the best form of government that we can come up with and blah blah blah, but does it seem to anyone else like a giant high school popularity contest? I mean, the guy that the majority of the people like gets to run the place because he's so popular that he got the most votes, and then he gives cushy jobs to all his buddies. High school is the pinnacle of society? Am I still asleep? This seems an awful lot like that nightmare I keep having.

Autumn on the prairies

• I hate when I go to a restaurant with friends and we go up to pay the bill and the server looks at me and asks, "All together?" I feel like if I answer "No, separate," everyone will think I'm cheap. And I AM! I just don't want others to know. So I end up feeling guilted into saying "Yep, together" and paying for everyone. Sometimes I'm awfully silly.

Sunrise on the rooftops

• Why oh why are people here so surprised by winter every year? Everywhere I go I hear griping: "I can't believe it's so cold already!" or "Why is it snowing?" or "I'm not ready for this weather yet! Bring back the 30°C!" People, it's October and it's Saskatchewan. It gets cold and the snow starts. It's been this way since before I can remember and it'll stay this way until after I'm gone, even with global warming. If you hate it that much, please move.
  

Dead flowers in the snow

Brooding

I'm going to see these guys tonight. I CAN'T! FREAKING! WAIT!

Games people play

The scene: A small coffee shop/art gallery. There is a 60th birthday bash being thrown for Nat's stepdad. He knows the owners, who have shut down the place for the party. Nat's sister, the sister's boyfriend, Uncle Steve, and Nat have snuck away to the coffee shop's kitchen area to play some cribbage on a makeshift table while the party rages on. Uncle Steve arrived from Winnipeg earlier in the day just for the party.

A woman no one knows enters the kitchen.

---------------------------------

Woman: Ah, so this is where the real party is!

Uncle Steve: Absolutely. It's the kitchen party.

Woman: Do you use the coffee shop kitchen as your own kitchen, too?

Uncle Steve: [looking around to see if she's talking to him] Um...yes?

Woman: Must be nice to have such a big space to use for your own cooking.

Uncle Steve: [getting into it now] It's great! One of the benefits of owning this place.

Woman: I bet!

Uncle Steve: [gesturing wildly] Have you gone out back yet? We're expanding. We're building up, we're building down. We're building out and around and in.

Woman: [eyes wide] That sounds WONDERFUL!

Uncle Steve: You should see in the winter. Beautiful.

Woman: Oooh, I just bet! But I should let you get back to your game. Nice chatting with you.

Uncle Steve: [to her retreating back] Make sure you try the cheesecake!

---------------------------------

I sure hope that poor woman was far enough away before the four of us dissolved into laughter.

Hair today, gone tomorrow

When I was ten years old, my then-step-grandma gave me a home perm. Please imagine horror movie strings screeching in the background when reading those terrible words: home perm.

Frog watching the sunset
I had been begging my mom for months to allow me to get a perm. She got them regularly - why couldn't I? Finally she relented after my step-grandma offered to give me one herself. I had high hopes for my first perm ever. I imagined myself walking into class with gorgeous wavy locks and all the kids collectively inhaling in awe at my new look.

Finally, after much burning and waiting and rinsing and drying, the unveiling occurred. It was HIDEOUS! I looked like a brunette Lil' Orphan Annie! I didn't know whether I wanted to to cry or shave my head first. Instead, I mustered up a shaky grin for my step-grandma and thanked her. Then I went into my room and cried.

The next day at school I tried to keep my touque on in class, but my teacher (heartless witch that she was) made me take it off. In front of everyone! The snickers and snorts still haunt my dreams.

Bridge construction
Since the home perm , I've struggled to find a hair style I liked. I cut it short, I grew it out. I dyed it red, I bleached it with Sun-In and lemon juice. I got real, salon perms. And through it all I uttered my all-too-familiar mantra: I hate my hair!

About four years ago I gathered up all my courage and had a friend give me a haircut I'd been aching to try. Short in the back, long at the sides, bangs - you know the one. I immediately fell in love with the style. It was quick and simple (two MUSTS for me) and I received compliments on it daily.

Flock of seagulls
And then April 28, 2009 happened and I found myself sitting in a surgeon's office being told I have breast cancer. And do you know what made me cry the most during that appointment (and, in fact, for days and maybe even weeks after)? It was when he told me that I would almost certainly need chemotherapy and I would lose all my hair. In our society, hair and clothes are seen to be expressions of personality and since I'm mostly unable to do that with what I wear, my hair became the way I showed there was more to me than people first assumed. And now my wonderful hairstyle was going to fall out.

I tried to put on a brave front for people. "I've always wanted to see what I look like bald, anyway!" or "They say it could grow back different - maybe I'll have those curly locks I've always wanted!" But that was mostly me saying things to make other people feel better. I didn't really believe it...at least at first.

A strange thing happened as I tried to placate others - I started to really buy in to what I was saying. Shortly after my aborted attempt at my first chemo treatment, I decided to get a kicky new pre-chemo hair cut. It was short and funky and I LOVED it! It made me stop dreading the whole growing-out process.

How many blackbirds can you see? I see 13.
Then a week and a half ago I noticed more hair in my hairbrush than usual. I decided that rather than going through the mess and the trauma of watching my fun new style go down the drain (and in the garbage and on my pillow and on the floor), I would have my friend Cake shave me. He couldn't do it until 4 days after the initial hair loss and by then my hair was falling off in clumps. There was a small section that was sticking out and I was trying to get it to lay flat and, instead, the whole bit came off in my hands. It was at that point that I realized that I was good and ready for what I was calling my Good Ol' Fashioned Shearing Party.

I went over to Cake's place, bottle of wine in hand. There were the obligatory before, during (complete with mohawk and fauxhauk), and after photos and to my utter delight, I didn't look terrible when he was all done! There were no weird lumps that were uncovered and my head isn't bizarrely misshapen or anything! I even walked home that evening without donning the funky head scarf I had brought with me in case of emergency.

Autumn sunset at the legislative building
Since then I've been embracing my new 'do, walking with my head high and scaring old people. But all of this doesn't mean I'm not looking forward to my hair growing back. I haven't spoken to my ex-step-grandma in 20 years. That should be a lesson to NOT MESS WITH MY HAIR AGAIN, cancer! I don't fool around about these things!

Mom: 3 Nat: 0

The scene: Nat's mom picks her up to go grocery shopping. Nat just had her head shaved because her hair was falling out by the handful.

Mom: You know, if I thought I would look better bald I would shave my head, too.

Nat: How do you know how you would look until you try it?

Mom: It would start growing in and it would be mostly grey. I think it would look terrible.

Nat: So you're not going to be one of those moms that shaves her head to support her cancer kid?

Mom: Nat, you know I'm here for you to help with anything you need - but I don't love you that much.

How do bald people cope with the constant cold head?

Timing is everything

Since being told I have breast cancer, I've been doing a lot of reading. I want to learn as much as I can about this gawddamned disease to help me get through treatment and ensure I never have to endure it again. One thing I've noticed over and over is that the literature urges me not to feel like I have to be superwoman. I'm advised that I shouldn't feel like I have to do it all myself, that there's no shame in asking for help.

This confuses me. Of COURSE there's no shame in asking for help! Of COURSE I don't have to do it all my self. And besides, do what, exactly? There's nothing in my life so urgent that it needs to be done if I'm aching all over and can barely keep my eyes open. How silly of all these people to even suggest otherwise.

Not all of my reading has been so serious, however. I just finished a book called Cancer Vixen by Marisa Acocella Marchetto. My friend Cake gave it to me shortly after I told him about my cancer. It's fabulous. It's a graphic novel all about the author's journey through breast cancer. Even though her life is vastly different from mine (she's a high-powered career woman living a glamourous life in New York and I'm...not) there are so many similarities with our stories that it's like she's writing about me sometimes.

Nevertheless, one thing about the book annoyed me throughout. She is constantly fretting that her fiance is going to wake up one day, decide that he can't take it anymore, and leave her for someone younger and healthier. She can't see how lucky she is! She's with a man who clearly adores her and wants to support her every step of the way, and she can't even see her good fortune.

But then I realized that no one really knows how lucky she is. It's never a good time to have breast cancer. A woman doesn't think, "Oh thank goodness it's now when I have a caring, loving partner and children to help me get through this." No, she thinks, "What if this is too much for him to deal with and he leaves me? What if my children can't handle it? Why couldn't this have happened when I was still single?"

Just as I don't think about how lucky I am that I'm going through this now when I only have myself to look after and worry about. Instead, I've cried myself to sleep thinking about how women with partners have it easier. They've already found someone to love them and stroke their hair and help them. They're not stuck being single, hoping that one day they'll find someone who won't shriek at the sight of their Frankenboob.

I realized that's why the cancer literature urges us to not feel like we have to be superwomen. Many women who get diagnosed with breast cancer are wives and mothers and grandmothers. These women have people who rely on them. They have responsibilities and obligations.

Once I had this realization, I sat down and made a list. The following are things should make me writhe around on the ground with joy:

• I have a wonderful family who I know is here to help me get through everything. My mother is alive and young enough to be there beside me every step of the way.
  
  
• I have more good friends in my life than I've ever had before. Probably in all my previous years combined.
  
  
• I have an adorable and cuddly cat that provides me with sympathetic mews and purrs.
  
  
• I have a very low housework expectation level. Not only am I able to live with myself if I don't do the dishes for 2 weeks or clean the bathroom for a month, but that's just business as usual around here.
  
  
• I have no one who's relying on my for income or care.
  
  
• I have a job that provides me with benefits so that I can take months off to focus on my treatments, and a boss who has encouraged me to do so.
  
  
• I'm young and strong and probably in the best health of my life.
  
  
• When I eventually do find someone to love me, he or she will know exactly what they're getting into - Frankenboob and all. They will love me because of what I've been through, not despite it.

It turns out there really is a good time to have cancer!