03.31.10
Posted in Uncategorized at 9:35 am by Bridget Zinn
My suspension of disbelief meter is set to Extreme High — meaning that I buy into almost anything I read no matter how implausible. When I read comic books, I have no problem believing in parallel universes, healing factors, or the danger of gamma rays.
But I always drew the line at bosoms as big as your head.
Not that this is an impossibility, but it is definitely an improbability. How often is your bosom really as big as your head? And not your combined bosom either — each ½ of the bosom area on a comic book heroine can easily be as large as the character’s head.
Some examples:
I thought this was HIGHLY amusing. It is a super power certainly to have ginormous bosoms that do not hinder one’s ability to fight crime, but sort of a ridiculous one.
I’m starting to rethink this issue.
I totally understand the need for cancer patients to be on the upper end of their weight range and I get why I am encouraged to be a bit on the rolly polly side and even given steroids to help this endeavor. I have first-hand experience with how dangerous one bad round of chemo can be and how quickly the weight can fly off when you spend your time throwing up constantly. I’ve read all of the statistics on “wasting syndrome” and the better survival chances of cancer patients who maintain or gain weight during treatment compared to those who lose it.
And I truly appreciate the fact that the “food tastes bad” chemo side effect hits me only briefly and in no way impedes my overall gustatory pleasure.
And I’m barely even complaining about how unfair it is to be bald, rashy, AND chubby.
But being on the upper end of your weight range can seriously decrease the head to bosom ratio putting you dangerously close to the Bosom As Big As Your Head Range.
I’m not sure that there is any horrible disadvantage to this — it hasn’t stopped me from fighting crime or anything important like that, though it is a bit hard on the old undergarments.
What it does stop me from doing is mocking comic book bosoms.
I am going to miss mocking comic book bosoms.
In the spirit of saving my strained undergarments and taking back my mocking abilities I’m going to keep my fingers crossed for a REALLY great CT Scan today.
Love to you all,
Bridget
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03.30.10
Posted in Uncategorized at 8:36 pm by Bridget Zinn
We spent the last week playing Librarian Spotting in Portland with the city flooded with librarians for PLA — usually conference materials or totes full of books were clear signs whereas a lost look alone was not. Apparently, there were oodles of people visiting Portland last week, not just librarians, and being on the lookout for librarians seemed to make us appear more approachable than usual.
We got asked for a lot of directions.
So fun to see librarian friends from across the country — Adrienne of What Adrienne Thinks About That took me out to lunch (thanks Adrienne!), I got to briefly see a bunch of fellow UW-SLIS graduates (before I keeled over from exhaustion), and was able to spend the weekend with Janet, my fellow Tarts’ Wardrobe blogger.
Sadly, they were all in town on chemo week. So I did not have my usual healthy vigor (not that I looked quite ill enough for people to give me candy, except, come to think of it, Aunt Jane did send me some — thanks Aunt Jane!). There were a lot of naps involved.
But we got to take Janet on a bit of the Beverly Cleary tour, eat Lebanese food, and get treats from Two Tarts Bakery (she talks more about her Portland adventures here here here and here).
And I got to show off both my day hair and my evening hair.
I am liking my evening hair more and more. It isn’t in any way like my real hair, but there’s something sort of fun and spunky about it.
My day hair is okay, but I think it might be too poufy on top. Now that I am becoming an expert on wigs, my vocabulary has expanded to include things like “perma-tease” which I’ve discovered I am not such a fan of.
The hunt for a good wig continues and I’m waiting to get some hair in the mail to try on any day now.
Plus, I just got a check in the mail for a wig fund from our friend Sarah Bradley who combined efforts and an art exchange with our other friend Matt Smith to come up with a contribution towards a fun wig. Thanks Sarah and Matt! Will post pics as new wigs appear.
Love to you all,
Bridget
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03.18.10
Posted in Uncategorized at 7:47 pm by Bridget Zinn
There are a LOT of happy birds in my neighborhood.
It feels as though, after a year of treatment, my scalp finally got tired and decided to take a break. Instead of thinning a bit as it did before, it just let it all go.
So the birds have nice thick hair for their nests and now I have a cold head. Who knew that all of that hair did so much insulating?
But it has lead me to discover wigs. Why did no one tell me how fabulous they are? It is perfect for lazy people such as myself. Instead of going to all of the trouble of washing and drying my hair (and even BRUSHING it on occasion), I could have just plopped a perfectly styled wig on my head.
I feel liberated.
So far I have a couple of wigs. One that is more or less similar in color to my actual hair but that behaves itself beautifully as my hair never did and one that is short and dark and does all of these cute flippy things. Both were a deal (one was free, so really quite a deal) and I’m still on the lookout. There are so many to choose from and it seems like there must be that perfect wig out there that is all things to all people. Or all things to me at least.
Not that I mind going around bald. If it weren’t for the cold issue and the dangerous lack of cushioning (and, of course, monotony fashion-wise), bald wouldn’t be so bad. If I was hoping that going bald would start to give me a sad, pitiful look and that strangers would come up to me and pat me on the head (gently) and say “Poor dear,” and give me candy, I was wrong. No one is going to give me candy. I look exuberantly healthy, possibly even more so bald than I did before. I have no idea why I look so healthy when all tests would indicate otherwise, but when your doctor looks at you and says things like, “With numbers like these, you should be hospitalized, but you just look too GOOD to be an inpatient,” you know there’s a disconnect somewhere.
I’m going to have to come up with a better scheme to get candy.
I hope you all are well!
Love,
Bridget
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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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