New Year's Resolution, Lose Weight, Buy New Rack

I wrote this entry in January. I've still got the same set, but they are another month older and their wrinkles are set. So now it's Oscar Sunday and I'm feeling like I need some girly girly dresses. But not strapless.

It's been two years plus and it may be time to buy a new set. Prosthetic breasts wear out over time. My first ones leaked at the seams, my second set saw one boob suffer a rupture of its skin, revealing a slightly sticky gelatinous "flesh" colored mass of silicone. Good thing it was an external rupture. (O.k., I know the substance that fills implanted breasts is different in consistency and color but apparently behaves the same if let loose from the skin that contains it.)

Two years of body oils and the soaps that remove said oils take a toll on the integrity of the skin of the prosthesis and eventually they fail. So then it's off to the store to get fitted in one of the latest improved (no really, these are so much better than those old ones that fit you perfectly and looked like what you remember your breasts looking like.) awesomely good new styles that are now available in that same weird "flesh" color.
Oh, you don't want that color? Well, we can order ones that are as far from your real color as these but in the other direction, so they'll be much darker than you, but that's closer, yes? No, we don't have those in stock because we don't have many women of color shopping here at high end department store what carried the brand that you like.

Are there really lots of black women walking around with white girl (and not exactly white, it's that "flesh" color) boobs on? Or do they all know about a store where we are catered to, but still can only find boobs the color of root beer candy? Me, I'd be happy with Kraft caramels.

I can't really think of a title for this one

I was rereading Point of Dreams this week, a wonderful novel set in Astreiant, a Renaissance-era city in an alternate Europe where women, by virtue of astrology, control all the fixed property. It's a delicate and thoughtful exercise in world-building and the authors never step outside the narrative to explain things to you, giving you credit for being clever enough to figure it out. Plus, there's a rattling good murder mystery at the heart of the plot.

I got on Google to search for a sequel. Instead, I found this obituary for Lisa A. Barnett, who with her partner Melissa Scott, created the city of Astreiant and its fascinating inhabitants.

Samantha battles breast cancer, and looks fabulous doing it

I finally watched those episodes of "Sex in the City" where Samantha is diagnosed with and treated for breast cancer. We originally got the disk from Netflix around the time I was diagnosed, and I just had a hard time seeing that particular plot line as entertainment. So, yeah, this review is about three years late.

There are two moments in this season that I truly loved. More on them in a minute. In the meantime, I have a couple of questions:

1. When Samantha is going through chemo, her mental ordeal around losing her hair is fully chronicled. But she continues to wear lung-baring tops, with nary a scar or chemo port in sight. Where, exactly, are they supposed to be sticking the drugs into her?

2. In a similar vein, we see a chemo-fied Samantha having sex with her boyfriend Smith while wearing a tiny metallic bra of the sort that Madonna probably sleeps in. How much morphine would she have to take for that thing to be comfortable over a lumpectomy scar? I'm guessing, in layman's terms, a metric buttload.

2.5. Let's back up for a second: Sex. While in chemotherapy. Heh heh heh heh heh heh. Whoo. Had me going there.

3. Finally, when Samantha's treatment is over, she whips off the bra to have more sex with Smith. Revealing. Perfect. Breasts. Um, guys? Even the hottest surgeon in Manhattan is going to leave you with a souvenir. Or two. Or four.

4. So, apparently, Samantha must have had DCIS/Stage 0, but decided to have chemotherapy rather than radiation because... the writers have never actually known someone with breast cancer?

OK, enough quibbling. The moments I loved were when Samantha uses her boyfriend to jump the line to see the hot shot oncologist, and the moment before her "inspirational speech" when she tells the committee to nix the pink ribbon cookies for the cancer fundraiser: "These women have cancer. They need more than a ****ing cookie."

THOSE moments were pretty real.

The Think System...

Cancer sucks.

I just got an email from a friend who is asking all of her friends to send some positive energy to a little boy who has been diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor.

Cancer sucks for all times.

So for you little M., we are telling that cancer to bounce. Hit the bricks, take a hike, don't let the doorknob hit you in your fucking out of control cells on the way out. You are so unwelcome tumor, that the light from Friendly won't hit you for a bazillion years.

Go. Go now. And let us not speak of this ever again.

Drinking in the Pink

Thank Jebus, October is over. I can safely return to the supermarket and not be bombarded with pleas to buy pink, eat pink, think pink, and drink pink. This Breast Cancer Awareness Month is a burden that gets more and more onerous as the years go by.

This year, along with pink drink coolers, pink ribbon faux carabiner key fobs, and pink cereal, I could buy a fifth of vodka in a bottle that sports a pink ribbon and claims that a portion of the proceeds will be donated to breast cancer research.

GetHammeredForTheCause

Funny, the vodka pictured at the link above isn't the one I saw while shopping in a market recently. Nice to know there's more than one way to give while getting hammered on "pink" martinis.

And let me just say that I was sorely tempted to respond to the checkout boy's rote question "would you like to make a donation to breast cancer research?" by whipping out my Foobs™ and declaring that perhaps I've given enough already. It's not his fault that he was instructed to ask this of every customer he spoke to while ringing up their groceries.
I would, however, like to spend a few minutes alone in a room with the genius MBA who thought that it was a good idea for all checkout people to ask that question. I'm just trying to buy some food, maybe a magazine, and I've gotta think about breast cancer? Again?? Would that genius MBA like to be reminded of some trauma he/she suffered every time he/she wants to buy a pint of ice cream and a copy of Vanity Fair?

Note to self: next year, stock up at the end of September, then send the spousal unit to the store for anything I might need in the dreaded month of boob corrosion awareness. It's amusing that our awareness ends with Hallowe'en. Trick or treat! Tricky tits!

Oh, and re that article Carny mentioned about the time it takes to get back to normal - word.

October madness

A couple weeks ago, I had an interesting conversation with an acquaintance who developed colon cancer in her 30s.


"I am kind of jealous of the ones with breast cancer," she said, "because NO ONE wants to talk about colon cancer."


We did find many things we had in common, however:


We both wish people would treat us like we've never had cancer... except when we need them to understand that we've had cancer.


We both find we've reached a broader perspective on life... you can't really call it enlightenment, because it sometimes involves wanting to smack the shit out of other people for being so stuck on the petty stuff.


And we've both made bargains with the Universe to do whatever it asks of us, anything at all, just as long as we get to see our kids reach adulthood.


And speaking of long-term survivorship, I read this article in Cure magazine last week while waiting to see my oncologist for a follow-up. It's pretty badly written, so I'll cut to the chase for you: New studies of survivors suggest that it can take years for life to go back to "normal" after cancer. Pain, fatigue and fear of reocurrence can persist even 11 years after diagnosis.


All I can say is: O RLY?

Signs of the Apocalypse No. 7

Madden NFL 09 Pink: Yes, Virginia, it's a video football game that "fights" breast cancer.