I get awkward when I’m uncomfortable and doctor’s offices make me uncomfortable. And when I get uncomfortable, I babble. And when I babble, I tell inappropriate stories. In my one hour at the doctor’s yesterday I told a number of random stories the staff did not need to hear. Including the following while the doctor was examining my cooter -
I was in my late teens and I was still in my active ‘try to look like everyone else even though you never will’ phase. My main images for my desired looks and behavior came from magazines - where not one model looked like me. The models in the magazines had bouncy shiny hair and clear skinned and were not in the least hairy – especially ‘down there’. I wanted so badly to fit in, to look like them so I bought the skin creams and I tried the hair products and, one weekend when I was home on break with my mother, I bought myself a self waxing kit. Now the kit required you to microwave the wax for a short period of time and then immediately apply it to your area, put the removal strips on the warm wax, wait a few seconds and then pull. My mother’s microwave was in the kitchen on one side of the house and the bathroom was on the other. By the time I’d heated the wax, crossed the house to the bathroom, removed my clothes and applied the wax, it had cooled too much to be effective. I tried applying the strips and pulling anyway but nothing happened. My kiki was now partially covered in wax and it was not coming off. I’m not sure if you’ve ever tried to pull wax off your skin but your Shereen Nanjiani is not the easiest place to try it. It hurts. A lot. And when it hurts, you scream. And when you scream, your mother starts pounding on the door, asking what’s wrong. And when your mother is pounding on the door, asking what’s wrong when you have a hoo hee covered in wax, the only answer is to laugh. I laughed. A lot. I laughed loud and long and there were tears and my mother was still asking and I was still laughing and it was not a pretty sight. Hours later, I finally got all the wax off with nail polish remover - all the wax and only some of my skin. I would love to say that the lesson was learned and that I never tried to give myself a beauty treatment at home again – but there is evidence out there of my ‘blonde’ hair dye job, my many attempts with make-up, the eyebrow-plucking incident, not to mention the haircut I’m currently sporting. The doctor and nurse seemed suitably amused by my stupidity. Or at least they pretended to be. It’s hard to tell when your feet are in stirrups and your face is on fire. I have an ultrasound next week. What fresh hell of a story will that bring up?
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I’ve got my annual physical today. And, because of who I am – a pessimistic optimist – I’m sure she’s going to tell me I have an incurable disease and I’m going to die.
They never do but this is how my brain operates. Yesterday, for no reason, my middle finger suddenly swelled and turned purple. That can’t help a person like me think fatally at a time like this. A few years ago, the doc found tumors in my uterus. They were fibroid tumors and benign but I left the doctors office sobbing. I called my mother in a panic. She was less than supportive in my angst. In fact, she was down right sarcastic and logical and who wants that when you’re in a crisis? ME: I have fibroid tumors mom! MOM: Oh. I had those. ME: She said they’re the size of a walnut. MOM: Neat. Mine were the size of a grapefruit. They shrink with menopause. ME: I’m going to die! MOM: Yes you will. Some day. But these won’t kill you. Husband used to be like that too. Until the time I went to the doctor for the dark patches of skin I have all over my face. I was sure it was skin cancer. It wasn’t. It was, the doctor said, Melasma Gravidarum, otherwise known as pregnancy mask. That had to be a bad thing as I wasn’t pregnant, right? But no, it turns out those pesky birth control pills I’d taken to not get pregnant had given me the symptoms of pregnancy. (Shakes fist at universe while screaming “Damn you”) Husband had a friend in town visiting and as a result, wasn’t in the least interested in my possible death diagnosis. In fact, I think he’d forgotten the whole thing. He didn’t ask me about the appointment. He didn’t ask me if I was okay. And so, being female, I chose to not mention it to him and stew in the deep pool of resentment until he was properly apologetic. It didn’t help his case that his friends staying with us had been married for years. Not only did the husband remember my doctors appointment, but he also remembered to ask how it’d had been and he was properly concerned with the outcome. His wife had trained him well. Husband did not do any of those things. Hours later, when he finally remembered to ask I was less than forthcoming with the correct information. HUSBAND: What did the doctor say? ME after a long sullen dramatic pause: She said I have pregnancy mask. HUSBAND: WHAT? ME after a sigh filled with deep angst: Pregnancy mask. You get it when you’re pregnant. HUSBAND who was now swerving all over the road: WHAT??? YOU’RE PREGNANT??? I DON’T WANT A BABY! HOW CAN YOU BE PREGNANT?!!! The screaming went on for a long time. His friend, sitting in the front seat was in tears he was laughing so hard. I was sitting in the back trying to not make eye contact with husband in the mirror. I waited a long, long time before answering. The yelling and cussing had almost stopped. The laughing had not. ME: No. I just have pregnancy mask. From the birth control pills. HUSBAND: Damn you. You almost gave me a heart attack. ME: Lesson learned. Husband now calls seconds after I’ve left the doctor. He’s even learned to be sympathetic to any and all possible diagnoses' I might have. I call him now before my mom. When you’ve just learned you’re not dying, it’s better to talk to someone who will fake care about it. In 2005 husband and I bought a fixer upper in the heart of Silicon Valley. Actually, first we got married and then, four months later, we bought a house. We were stupid. We didn’t know what we were getting ourselves into at all. And do you know what do you do when you don’t know what you’re getting into? You do more stupid stuff. So, instead of moving into our Silicon Valley shack and starting slowly, we started to remodel - the kitchen, laundry room, master bedroom, office and great room all at the same time. Year one of our marriage was not dull.
In April, in the middle of all the remodel hell, we had a visit from Father-in-Law. Father in Law (FIL) inspires an instant return in Husband to his teenage angry rebellion stage and some how, the combination of FIL and me, his brand new wife caused Husband to stupidly agree to the Kitchen Bet of 2006. It started innocently enough, I was complaining about timelines and Husband blurted out that he could finish the kitchen by July 2006. And then we ended up here: ME: I bet you can’t. HUSBAND: I bet I can. ME: What’s on the table, what you betting? HUSBAND: If I win, you buy me a flat screen TV. ME: Fine. HUSBAND: Fine. What do you win? ME: If I win, you have to get a Vasectomy! Silence. From Husband and FIL. For quite awhile. And yes, they both subconsciously reached to protect the 'area'. I should probably mention here that neither Husband nor I wanted children and yet, like all men, he was not rushing in to the doc to “snip” away his ability to have children. Why, I’d ask. Why not get it taken care off if you don’t want kids? He says that it’s because someday, maybe his sperm will cure cancer. Yes, he says that. He doesn’t want a vasectomy because his sperm will cure cancer. I’m still confused how this will happen, the curing of cancer with his sperm. How will the doctors know it will cure cancer? How will they find out? Will some accidentally get on some cancer and cure it and...? Sorry, SQUIRREL. (And ew.) Anyway, the Kitchen Bet was accepted and we were off. Kitchen was torn out. Fancy appliances were purchased. Cupboards were purchased and installed. There were lots of fights. Lots and lots of compromises. Lots of laughs, mostly me falling down in stitches when husband and his Scottish slang got going. It’s hard not to laugh when your loved one calls you Bampot, a Numpty or a Doolally and you have no idea what it is. During this time, everything we ate was cooked in the microwave that lived in the laundry room or eaten out somewhere cheap. The day we bought a small toaster oven was like Christmas. Dishes were washed in the guest bathtub, hunched over the edge and dried in the non-working sink. I was so ready for it to be over. And then, it was July 1, 2006 and the kitchen was most definitely NOT finished. The bet was over and he had lost. Or had he? Now, the one concession I agreed to with the deadline was the countertop. The countertop was not in by July 1, 2006. It was due a few weeks later. I agreed to extend the deadline 24 hours after installation to allow him to add the strip of molding around the base of the island and at the top of the countertop. He didn’t make that deadline. The bet was over and he lost. Husband would like me to stipulate that he said 24 man-hours from installation of said countertop. I disagree. We sold our house November 2012 and those pieces are STILL NOT INSTALLED and therefore, I won the bet and he lost! Husband still disagrees. He bought himself his own big flat screen TV but still insists he said he had 24 man-hours to complete the kitchen. I say that buying TV showed he knows he lost. Because he did! Regardless, here we are, six years later, about to remodel our kitchen and Husband still has all his swimmers. I want my winnings. I want my Vasectomy! My Kitchen hates me. We bought this house, a fixer-upper, ten months ago. Actually, Husband bought the house. I had only seen the pictures online but, while the kitchen wasn’t my style, I thought it wasn’t horrible. But then we moved in. And the Kitchen formed an instant dislike to me. And, I can safely say the feelings were totally reciprocated. In full! The dishwasher washes the dishes like a petulant teenager – which is to say not really at all. It chooses which morsels of food to wash off and which to keep on – and the pieces it keeps are all the large chunky bits that get baked on like a ceramic textured bobble and then you need to rewash each dish since after you pick off the stupid ceramic textured bobble, there’s a grease mark or a stain or whatever and it’s too gross to put back into the cupboard. The double oven is pissed off at us and every thing we put inside it. That’s why it chooses to burn the back half of anything and everything. If you want to cook anything, you have to turn it every five minutes. That’s the bottom oven. The top oven hates us so much it doesn’t work. At all. It just stares at us with its tiny window that says, “Bend down fool. I’ll take nothing you offer.” The sink was once that lovely white enamel sink I thought I’d like. I don’t. It stains. Leave a tealeaf on it and it’s stained. Let the tap drip; it’s stained. A burnt bread pan will result in a pattern of the bread pan and the discolored stream of wet bread burnt bits as they headed to the drain. Neither side is big enough to wash a pot. Try a frying pan and the thing marks up worse than a wall with a toddler and a crayon. The stains have made the sink very angry and so – and this might be my favorite part - turn on the garbage disposal in the right sink section and it will shoot water four feet high out of the drain in the left sink section, spraying everyone and everything with all the gross stuff that the disposal hadn't quite finished with but hung onto for a few weeks until it was slime. The left section is where we keep our dish drainer so I have to rewash every dish after each use because of the fountain of goo that I forget will be coming out the drain every time I click the garbage disposal button. Then there’s teal blue counter top – yes, you read that right – the teal blue counter top - is warped in every direction and flaked with the probably toxic paint the realtor painted the house in. I’m upset that it might be toxic paint but even more traumatized that it’s such a bad paint job. It’s flat cream-ish yellow paint that someone applied with a roller but only put on one coat. The teal blue paint shines on through the crap paint job on all the cupboards and shelves but one inside cupboard door. Really not sure why or how they missed that one, but they did. It drives me as crazy as that stupid one pant leg up, one pant leg down phase the kids were going through. I do love the teal blue doorknobs on the badly painted cupboards but they don't function as they should when one is pulling open a painted shut door. That is if the cupboard door would even open past the vent hood. What dumbass designed this? And how much of a dumbass am I that I can’t remember it does that and open it into the vent hood every time? Don’t answer that.
Of course, I wouldn’t even be using that cabinet if the ones on the other side of the Kitchen hadn’t been filled with rat poop when we moved in. FILLED WITH RAT POOP. I cleaned them out and sprayed and bleached but I just couldn’t bring myself to put anything in there. Seriously gross. My Kitchen hates me and, when your Kitchen hates you, you remodel - so your Husband can hate you and you can hate him. We started the remodel project this weekend with Husband removing the pantry door. And finding these. Millions and millions of these! Thankfully, old and crispy but still - EW! Well played Kitchen. Well played. My hair is the thing I hate most in this world. Actually no, my hair is the thing I hate; second only right now to American politics, politicians and Congress. It has never once looked like the hair of women in magazines or movies. It’s never swayed or bounced or shone like the hair in shampoo commercials – even when I’ve used the shampoo or conditioner or frizz tamer or whatever lie they’re selling. My hair just sits there on top of my head, shamed, frizzy and immobile. And, despite whatever I do, it has never once looked like Halle Berry’s hair. Her cute funky cut taunts me. Those of you who know me, know about The Great Hair Bet of 2010 when Husband thought he could trick bet me into growing it out. This is how The Great Hair Bet of 2010 went down. HUSBAND: I bet you can’t grow your hair. ME: I bet you can’t grow your hair. HUSBAND: Challenge accepted! Six months later, he looked like a pedophile, seriously gross and creepy and, thankfully, cut his hair. I did the dance of the winner but then he said I’d forfeit if I didn’t make it to the December 25, 2010 deadline. Challenge accepted, I powered down and grew that fro and won The Great Hair Bet of 2010. Yea me! I shaved it all off five months later. My taking care of my hair is hard. I’m currently sporting a variation of my high school hair; short on the sides and top and long at the back. I alternate between twisting or braiding the top bit and pretending I’m a bit more hip and arty than I am. I HATE it but I can’t get my hair past the hideous grow out stage anywhere but the top.
I ran into one of the neighbors in a shopping center last week and, after the pleasantries, she said “My husband what’s to know what the hell you’ve done to your hair?” She said it just like that. Sadly, this is not the first time I’ve heard this. Husband has said it to me. Brother has said it to me. Friends have said it to me repeatedly – often after I’ve shaved it all off. And sadly, this isn’t even the first time a neighbor has said it to me. But I don’t know what to do with it. Yes, it looks great when it’s long – sometimes. And yes it looks great when it’s short, or shaved or braided – sometimes. The other times it is just a holy mess. When I was young, my mother would braid my hair every Sunday. The Sunday Hair Ritual would with the unbraiding of the style from week before, washing, detangling and combing out the mass of fro and then an hour of her yanking and pulling and twisting my head in awkward positions as she re-braided it. I, of course, would sit patiently while she braided, not a peep of protest or squeal of pain coming out of my mouth. I miss those times where I had no choice in the matter. The choice of what to do with my hair can keep me up at night, not to mention the constant sobbing and occasional shrieking at the Gods, Why me???" with my hair clenched tightly in my fists . That’s why it’s often shaved off, down to the scalp, the way my mother hates it. It's just so easy to know what to do with that hairstyle – wear a hat. |
AuthorMy name is ej. I'm a girl. I say that because with the short hair and the short initials, folks aren't always sure. More brilliant insights to who I am in About me Archives
April 2019
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