03.03.10
Posted in Uncategorized at 3:58 pm by Bridget Zinn
When I was little, there was a time when my hair was a hot ticket item. It wasn’t that it was so fashionable — in fact it was cut in a hideous style known as “the bowl cut”.
But that’s just one of those funny things about birds — absolutely no attention to style.
Birds, they go for the bright shiny stuff. When that shiny stuff looks like it will make a strong warm nest, all the better.
I discovered this one day when they started diving at me. They dove down, ripped out beakfuls of my bright red, bowl-cut hair, and swooped away with it. Chortling in their evil birdish way.
I tried to tell my mother this. In fact my exact pre-school words were, “Mommy, the birds are terrorizing me.” She thought this was quite funny. Ha ha ha! Birds don’t terrorize pre-schoolers. What a riot this kid is. I gave her a look. Mothers can be so immature sometimes. She decided to humor me. “I’ll watch when you go outside, okay?”
So I stepped back outside, right into the path of danger. Dive, pull, swoop and there went another chunk of my hair. It wasn’t like I didn’t have enough hair, there was enough hair up there for a good five or six normally-haired children, but, for crying out loud, it hurt!
Years later when my mom and I watched Hitchcock’s The Birds together (which she promised me would be super scary) I was kind like, Eh, been there, done that. My birds were way scarier.
So now that I’m on this new chemo and my hair has started falling out AGAIN (just when I’d gotten used to the laid back chemo regime that didn’t affect my hair at all!) and I risk becoming like a normally-haired person again instead of a wooly-mammothly-haired person, I like to think that I am making a lot of birds in our neighborhood very happy. Shedding a little bit on each walk, I’m just helping to make jolly little bird homes.
If you haven’t been keeping up with me of facebook, the latest news is that I’ve been restricted to being at home and staying away from people since last Friday due to the old low white blood count/fever business. We’ve decided that walking in our neighborhood is safe as long as we avoid the street ball games and lemonade stands that have started springing up along with the daffodils. If we didn’t go for walks, how would the birds get access to the shedding hair? Really, it’s for the good of all. Probably I’m saving some poor red-headed kid from getting dive bombed by birds.
Mostly we’re able to avoid people (I miss people), but I did run into our postman on my walk today and had to stop and say “Hello” as he is one of my favorite people what with all of the bringing me cards and prezzies from all of you and wearing shorts at Christmas to remind me that we don’t live in the frozen midwest tundra anymore. He didn’t appear to have any suspicious flu-like symptoms, so I think I’m okay.
The rash, well, it isn’t gone, but it’s better and I must enjoy the vacay as the next round of the drug that started it all is next Wednesday.
Since quarantine means that I have missed out on all sorts of fun things (like Victoria Jamieson’s super awesome Olympics Viewing Party on Saturday and Christine Fletcher’s A Hepkitten’s Guide to the War presentation at the Cedar Mill library on Sunday), I have at least been able to read many, many books and most recently tore through a copy of Prom Nights From Hell that Barrett picked up along with my antibiotics at Fred Meyer. I always forget how fun short story collections can be — to see how each author handles the same theme.
And I’m working on sketching out the sequel to POISON which currently cracks me up but might actually be just a bit too… well, we’ll see. Maybe the prostitutes will have to go.
Love to you all,
Bridget
*Note: Awesome crow image modified from original Crab Scrambly art produced for Upstart Crow Literary, the coolest literary agency in all the land, with added red hair for dramatic effect.
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02.27.10
Posted in Uncategorized at 11:04 am by Bridget Zinn
I frequently make fun of my dad for having the most spoiled dog on the planet. Guinness refused to play catch because it required moving her lazy little dog bottom all the way out to catch the ball and then all of the way back.
So my dad started throwing treats.
She only needed to get her lazy dog bottom to the treat and not all of the way back again.
But then she started thinking in her tiny dog brain that she got treats all of the time, did she REALLY need to put in the effort to run out and get the treat? Sooner or later she’d get one for just sitting still.
So my dad started dipping her treats in Merlot.
This seems to work.
BUT does she have a blanket nest with a heated heating pad next to a radiator?
Love to you all,
Bridget
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02.25.10
Posted in Portland at 10:12 pm by Bridget Zinn
So. Tired. Of. Itching.
The rash is SO much better than it was — I no longer look like someone cursed me or put joke “horrible rash makeup” on me. I like to think that it just looks like I’ve been doing a bit of skiing in the mountains and have a nasty case of wind chap. Or possibly a run in with microdermabrasion which would instill hope that at the end I would come out looking radiant (for those of you not familiar with microdermabrasion it is where they shave down your skin with some kind of machine in order to get rid of all sign of wrinkles etc., but somewhere between the original look and radiance you end up looking like a slab of raw meat in a deli case).
But it itches. Itch, itch, itch, itch, try to sleep, wake myself up scratching, itch itch itch ITCH ITCH. I am trying all sorts of interesting remedies — thanks to everyone who sent me suggestions and to Sharee, my neighborhood FG, who dropped off a sample of neem cream this morning. I feel for you all, my sensitive skin sisters (well, and my dad, who recommended A&D ointment which is on the schedule for trial tonight, except that Barrett just informed me he looked for it everywhere and couldn’t find it and possibly they don’t make it anymore?) and all of your rashy pain.
We go through life being SO careful about every single thing that comes into contact with our skin — avoiding things like the sun, jellyfish, and exciting new creams that carry even the slightest hint of aroma, and going out of our way to use only hypo-allergenic unscented laundry detergent and shower gel. Then WHAM! something like this sneaks up on you and you get the worst rash you’ve ever had as though your skin is making up for all of the years of non-rash so that somehow it is both weepy and painfully dry, both inflamed and itchy. Very, very itchy.
To the point that I actually took the narcotics my doctor recommended last week and I absolutely hate narcotics for many reasons such as how they make everything all hazy and soft around the edges, but the minute you go off of them, the world is all sharp elbows and pointy bits and all of those emotions that were soft and floaty before zip to the surface and you find yourself sobbing over an article in Edible Portland on Future Farmers of America.
I’m pretty sure that this is not why I cried through the first ten minutes of the fabulous, fabulous film UP! and then laughed hysterically through most of the rest, I think really the movie would have done that to me anyway, but possibly going off narcotics on Sunday had a smidge to do with it. If you haven’t seen this movie, you must. It’s so brilliant. One of those stories that, if you’re a writer, makes you wish you could come up with something half that good. Go watch it!
As I promised you Fun Times, Sunshine and Rainbows etc. I’m posting pics from a little game we played over the weekend called Flower Hunt. A game with rules so mysterious they really can’t be discussed except to mention how I always seem to be winning (Barrett never stood a chance). 
I’m off to try the next skin cream on my list. So far Aveeno has been at the top, but we’ll see how some of these other suggestions go. Fingers crossed!
Love to you all,
Bridget
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02.19.10
Posted in Uncategorized at 4:38 pm by Bridget Zinn
After my last few posts, I was set on having all sorts of Fun Times, Sunshine and Rainbows to share with you all. But I’ve been thwarted. You’ll have to wait until next week for a post full of Joy and Wonder (and there will be Joy and Wonder).
I started a new anti-cancer study drug this week.
My doctor mentioned that a rash was a possible side effect. A wee rash. Just a little bit of a bother, nowhere near as bad as the side effects from regular chemotherapy. Most likely it would show up a few weeks after starting the drug and they could prescribe a little cream or something.
The rash showed up on day 3.
And it is not wee.
Not wee at all.
The entire upper half of my body is covered in a flaming red rash that looks like the worst case of teenage acne you can imagine crossed with an evil gypsy curse. It feels like being attacked by nasty, bitey little fire ants on top of an acid spill, chicken pox and perhaps a touch of poison ivy.
Apparently, I’m sensitive to the drug.
And I’d just recovered from my tooth drama and the last round of chemo!
My physician immediately took me off the drug and prescribed all sorts of interesting things to try and combat the rash before starting the drug back up again. It’s probably doing great things fighting cancer and all, but good god, it’s a rough way to go.
On the plus side, I am becoming an expert on anti-itch creams. And one can never know too much about anti-itch creams, right?
Stayed tuned for Joy and Wonder, Good Times, Fun Things, Sunshine and Rainbows etc. in the near future. I have some catching up to do.
I hope everyone is having a great pain/itch-free week!
Love to you all,
Bridget
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02.17.10
Posted in Portland at 2:20 pm by Bridget Zinn
It is gorgeous here. Flowers are popping up all over the place, the sun is shining, and the air smells rich and fresh and spring-like. I can’t help but fall in love with Portland all over again.
It would be much more fun if I wasn’t getting my ass kicked by this round of chemo. I’m on a new study and they like to start you off at full power which means a big bucketfull of blech — fatigue, gi ruckus, nausea, body aches etc.
I’m drinking a lot of tea.
In other news, Barrett launched a new website he designed for author and friend April Henry. It is DIVINE and FABULOUS and I CAN’T WAIT FOR YOU ALL TO SEE IT!
I hope everyone is having a great week!
Love to you all,
Bridget
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