Sunday, September 27, 2015

Friday: My Most Revealing Post Ever (Note The Use Of A Colon)

There are so many ways to start this post, none of them mature, so let's just get it out of the way because shit's about to get real around here. For years I've been nagging my doctor to schedule me for a colonoscopy because my uncle passed away from colon cancer at 40, but my doctor said I could wait until I was 50. The thing is, I didn't want to wait. They say that death begins in the colon. Now, I'm not sure who "they" are, but that's a pretty shitty thing to say. Not that I necessarily want a camera snaked up my bum, but I also know that shit happens. 

Everyone who's ever had 5 feet of surgical tubing inserted into their colon will tell you that the prep you have to do the night before is the worst part, and I am not about to argue that point. (Seriously though--it's 5 feet; I asked.) I jokingly thought I would live-blog the event, or at least do a mock live blog, so I took this pic of me with the mixture of the stuff you have to drink before I even tasted it. Here I am perky, trying to be cute, happy if a little hangry from having to fast for the entire day. Looking back on this pic I see what an asshole I was being, no pun intended, because...
The stuff you have to drink is heinous. Like the spit of a mean person heinous. And you have to drink 2 liters of mean person spit within 2 hours, which basically means you're chugging something you can barely choke down. (Pay no attention to the unintentional placement of Zoey's chalk drawing behind me.)
After this picture, i.e. after the very first glass, everything went dark. As in the mean person spit started to work, and holy fire hose, people. I think we can all agree that my trying-to-be-funny idea to "live blog" the event was beyond fucking stupid. There are simply no words to describe what occurred in my bathroom for the next 8 hours, except to say that Bryan slept on the couch that night and there was a point sometime past midnight that I thought for reals that I was probably going to die from the sheer velocity of it all. I mean, if I didn't shit myself forward, cracking my head on the tile floor, then surely there was a very real possibility of me falling off the toilet because I was so dizzy from the medicine and the not eating. And the shitting. Did I mention the shitting? 

You guys, believe me when I say I am someone that has gone 4 decades without admitting to ever having gone poop. So the fact that I am even writing this post is a testament to a.) my absolute disbelief that colonoscopies are a thing we should all do, and b.) that I want people to be less afraid of shitting themselves to death via colonoscopy than shitting themselves to death via cancer.

Because I didn't. Die, that is. The next morning I woke up and had to drink yet another 2 liters of the mean person spit. Only this time it was less violent as there was simply nothing left to vile. Except bile. Out of my butt. Too much? Please, we've come this far. Bryan drove me to the hospital with me clenching the whole way there while Googling on my phone "do people ever poop on the doctor during a colonoscopy?" (Surprisingly, there were not that many direct hits to this inquiry, which I still think is a valid question.)

I had wanted to Sharpie something on my butt for the doctor beforehand, but in the throes of prep I forgot to be funny. Instead I just asked him if anyone ever did that, and he said yes, once he had a guy write Go Giants on his ass. I laughed, and thought for a second that I should probably tell him that when I was little I had swallowed a Weeble Wobble once, that he might find it in there because I don't remember it ever coming out, but then I thought that maybe he would think that I had put it IN my butt, so I didn't say anything, suddenly ashamed of that 35 year old stomach-acid-eaten Weeble Wobble, and then they put something in my IV and all of a sudden it didn't bother me at all that someone said they were going to insert the camera in my rectum now. There was a power ballad on, and I was awake but also not, as I usually am when listening to power ballads. I guess my eyes were closed; I guess some time went by. All I know is that there was some tugging and pushing and then the doctor said there was a small polyp, and I opened my eyes and looked at it on the screen. Yes! I said out loud, which was maybe a strange thing to say, strange to say anything at all, but I was happy that there was a reason for being, or a reason for shitting, a raison de la merde, I don't know. Just yes?

Later, after it was over and I was dressed, the doctor came out to shake my hand (dude, I know), and to tell me that they had taken one small polyp that was probably nothing but they would biopsy it. So it was small? He said yes. Like small and dainty, a pretty polyp? He said it was not dainty per se, just small and probably nothing, and then he told Bryan that I was not allowed to drive for 24 hours, or cook or go on social media, that I should probably just stop talking because I was still under conscious sedation, which seemed very modern and fair. The rest of the day had rounded edges and was pleasant.

So there it is. In 10-14 days I will find out that my polyp is most likely nothing, but if I had waited until I was 50, who knows? The bottom line (groan): if I can do it, me--someone who barely acknowledges pooping--then you can do it. Please, get a colonoscopy.

And because you stuck with me this long, this, just for shits and giggles...
xo,
S

Wednesday, September 23, 2015

R is for...

I'm just going to leave this here.


Yep.
S

Tuesday, September 15, 2015

Over...Alls

If you know me in real life then you know I've been trying to make overalls happen for the last year or so. Not like I'm a trendsetter-- No, more that I had such a good time in overalls circa 1993 that I really want them to work on me again. Screw the fact that I was 21 in 1993 and not 21 now (you do the math). I think I should look like I did then, or at the very least like an overalled Winona Ryder back in the day. You know, because I have short hair now and all. Twinsies!
I mean, right? Totally could be me.

Except it's not. Couldn't. Isn't and never was. It wasn't in the first pair I bought from Madewell that were supposed to look good on everyone. (Lie.) And it wasn't in the 3 vintage pairs I bought from Urban Outfitters. It wasn't in the stupid expensive ones I bought from Anthro either. (I can't even link to those, I am so ashamed of how much I was willing to pay, i.e. how much I wanted 1993 back.)

Every time I ordered, tried on, and sent back overalls I told myself that was it. It just isn't meant to be. 1993 is gone. I have a muffin top and naso-labial folds now. Naso-labial folds and overalls are simply not meant to go together outside of a pottery studio. But then I would see another pair on a blog and feel like maybe I just hadn't found the right pair. And I would order them again.

And again. Today I got the latest maybes, another Madewell find--the Flea Market Flare. I mean, you guys, I love flea markets! Surely these would work. I had ordered two sizes and went about pulling the smaller pair on. They were...stiff. Snug. Not like 1993 overalls which had been faded and soft, floppy. These were fitted. Sharp. Intentional overalls. I'm not sure overalls are meant to be intentional? But I also know that all things get updated. So I sucked in my gut. Thought perhaps a different shirt underneath? With heeled boots? Maybe...?

That's when Bryan found the larger size and tried them on to show me how ridiculous I looked. How ridiculous 2015 overalls are, how I am not a 21 year old Winona or even a 40-something Gwen Stefani rocking a pair with a crop top beneath. No, I am more like an SNL Pat.
(I admit--at this point I thought still, maybe they could work. Until Zoey took our picture and showed me just how dowdy they looked.)
To some degree, Bryan actually looks better in the Flea Market Flare than I, something about his slim hips, perhaps. Or maybe it's the camel toe.
After I saw the pictures, I knew. I'm definitely returning these. Which is nice in that I am saving $$$, but also nice in that I can stop stalking 1993 now. You know, don't go chasing waterfalls, and all that.
(Although maybe? If I find a super soft vintage pair? Shut up. Why can't I stop?)
Stick to the rivers and the lakes that you're used to...
xo,
S

Friday, September 11, 2015

September the You-Know-What

Today is September 11. Tomorrow is September 12.

The first date makes you pause. Tense up. Remember and feel bad, vaguely heavy and where were you? Last week I noticed that my milk was due to expire on September 11. It took me a second, but then that date looked strange stamped all nonchalantly on a gallon of milk like that.

I know you see it too. Maybe not on your milk but on your cheese perhaps, all of our Facebook feeds full of when our worlds stopped 14 years ago today. Never forget. So we don't. Can't. Because forgetting would be somehow rude to those that died, their families, though I don't know that they care. I am pretty sure that when I die I will want to be remembered for how I lived, celebrated for my life and not for the way I died. 

I am strangely afraid of how you will read that, but I stand by it. Instead of the day-long zeitgeist of sadness and vague fear, what if every September 11 we eat kale salad with warm panko-crusted goat cheese, drink Slurpees, watch reality tv, gossip, debate politics, embarrass our children by dancing stupid in living rooms across this great nation of ours? What if we turn the day into a celebration of each of those 2,977 Americans who died, into a celebration of us all? Because fuck terrorists. They don't get to have every September 11 forever and ever, amen.

September 12. Apparently my milk will be sour by tomorrow. It is also the 2 year anniversary of my mom's death. Zoey has her first soccer game. When I got the soccer schedule I looked at the date thinking wait, I have something else to do that day. And then I remembered. Of course. September 12.

But do I? Have something else to do? What do I do? Such a strange thing to commemorate, a death day. I feel guilty not spending the day mourning my mom, remembering her, creating some sort of ceremony out of her death as a way to control the uncontrollable. This day two years ago. Where were you?

I think we can all agree that cancer is a terrorist, and conversely that terrorists are a cancer. They took September 11, 2001, and for me, September 12, 2013. But what if we took back those days in the future? I mean, if Bin Laden were still alive and on Facebook, I'm pretty sure he would love the fact that our feeds are full of images of the planes crashing into the towers. Fuck that. Fuck Bin Laden. Fuck cancer. Let's fill up our feeds with American mundanity: pictures of sunsets and stories of period panties, videos of Jimmy Fallon's lip sync battles. Tomorrow I am going to Zoey's soccer game. I will bring snacks and a blanket to sit on. Afterward we might get fro-yo. We might not. Then the next day will be September 13. And I will still love and miss my mom.
Happy this day to you, and tomorrow, too.
xo,
S




Friday, September 4, 2015

The Boy

The photo of the dead Syrian boy who washed up onto a beach in Turkey.
I can't stop looking at it. Like I see an article and even though I already know the story, saw the photo, I click on it, click past the warning of a graphic image, and I see it again and again and again.
There is nothing I can say that others haven't said better. Something about his shoes. His body heavy with the sleep of a 3 year old boy. Every parent knows that repose. Except of course we don't because this boy is dead. 
I go in at night to look at my own children sleeping. I am in disbelief that the world has given me this love, this luck, this burden of knowing how hair trigger close I am to losing it all, the difference only in where I was born.
Something still different but also the same: I read somewhere that Sandy Hook marked an end to the war on gun control in the US once America decided killing children was bearable, and yes. I am still friends with The Brady Campaign on Facebook, but I am also friends with Chipotle and Kate Spade.
What do I do, what do I do, what do I do? I donate to the Refugee Crisis. I read more articles. I click on the link thinking that making myself look at the photo honors the boy, humanizes him, maybe wondering if at a certain point it will no longer shock me, the photo of a little boy so much like my own, face down dead in the sand. 
Thousands of people pushing to get on a train that doesn't move. Other than that, inclusive of that, I don't know.