My Life as a Hotfessional

Before I go getting serious on y’all, I have to get this out of my system.

To the guy in the Security Line at DTW this morning:

Contrary to what you may believe, attaching yourself to my hip will not make me move faster. I still must take off my shoes, take my laptop out of its case, pull my plastic baggie of liquid-type-shit out of my carryon, and take off my jacket. I can do this in under 30 seconds. I’ve timed myself and I am an expert.

So when you decide that there’s far too much room between me and the person in front of me, nudging me repeatedly will only make life worse for you. Believe me when I say this. And when you decide to cut around me, so you can get through security first? Remember that karma – she is a nasty bitch and will bite your ass.

But I’m sure that having your luggage unpacked and searched was much less delaying than waiting for me to untie my freaking shoe.
Love, and Have a great trip!
The Hotfessional

There was my funny for the day. Oh, there may be some humor-ish-ness in the rest of the post, but for the most part, I just want to tell y’all a little something. So, if you’re looking for snark…it may be buried in here - because I can’t take anything too seriously anymore. If you’re looking for the sexy? Probably not. (Unless you have some interesting ideas of sexy….in which case, I think I love you. Come sit in the corner and we’ll neck.)

Sometime around 1996 or so, Mr. Hot was brushing my very long, very thick hair. I loved the feeling of the brush going through the strands – it was more relaxing than a massage - excellent foreplay– and it was a great prelude to my making him cookies, so he was happy to oblige.

He stopped brushing and said, “Ree, you’ve got a bald spot here,” and rubbed the top left side of my head. “About the size of a quarter.”

I felt it. Yep. Bald. Not just thinning, but smooth as a baby’s ass. I figured it was some weird side-effect of birth control pills or a little too much tension on the curling iron or something. I knew it would grow back. I am hairy.

About a week later, I was tying my shoe at MomandDad’s house. “Ree, you’ve got a bad spot on the top of your head! What happened?”

After assuring them that he and I didn’t play “Caveman”, Mr. Hot told them about the hair brushing, and looked at it himself. “Um, Ree? It’s bigger than it was.”

And so, I made an appointment with a dermatologist.

I was afraid he was going to tell me that I had some incurable cancer of the hair. Or that I had a spider’s nest growing in my scalp. (Hush! It could happen.) Instead, he told me was that I had an auto-immune disorder. Not unlike lupus, or scleroderma, or Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis. My white blood cells decided, for whatever inex-fuckin-plicable reason that they didn’t like my hair cells. (Die! Die hair cells!) My white blood cells decided to become over-achievers.

The treatment for alopecia areata (only sometimes successful, he was careful to point out) was cortisone shots. In my head. Oh mah holy hell, y’all. “I PASS OUT”, I wanted to yell. “You can’t give me injections IN MY HEAD.”

Then he told me I would need to return every.two.weeks. for shots.

And then I died.

Not really, duh. I sucked it up and Dr. Shek (no, not Shrek, but how cool would that have been?) and I became best buds. I cut off all my hair into a really cute little shag, thinking that choppy layers would make the, um, hairless spots, seem less noticeable. (It didn’t.) We had our Tuesday afternoon dates – him and his needles. Me and my tissues. I am proud to say that I never fainted. Not once.

Well meaning co-workers asked if I was going through chemotherapy. I got to the point where I could quote the Wiki version of auto-immune disorders in general, and my disease in particular (and this was before Wiki was invented!). I wanted people to stop feeling sorry for me. I wanted them to stop thinking I was going to, y’know, become deceased.

I wanted people to look at my eyes, not my hair. I wanted my mother to stop asking me if I’d like her to buy me a wig. (Sure, why not. About a $5000, human hair model…like Cher wears…not the synthetic J.C. Penney model you wore in the 60’s though, okay Mom?) I wanted to be able to wash my hair without clogging up the drain and comb it without obsessively checking the number of strands that were in the comb’s teeth.

Eventually, that’s exactly what happened. And eventually I was only seeing my boyfriend - the cute Dr. - every 4 weeks. Then every six weeks. And then, we broke up. It was time for me to see someone else – the guy who cut and styled my hair. It came back in gray. It was curly and kinky and frizzed when it never had before, but it was hair. I hated it. And I loved it.

According to my Wiki version, the active phase of Alopecia Areata is sometimes triggered by stress. Sometimes, there’s no reason for it at all. Shit happens. Some say it’s genetic. Some say if you have relatives with a different auto-immune disorder, you’re more likely to get it. Whatever. All I know is that Shit.Happens.

Ten years later? Shit Happens again. About 3 weeks ago, I was in the shower, and pulled out a clump of hair that could have covered a chihuahua. If you take your index finger and put it on your right temple, draw a line around the back of your head to your left temple, and pull all of that hair straight up? You’ll know where I’m losing it. Heres a picture. Here’s another.

I’ve told my parents that it’s back (Mom is no longer offering wigs). Mr. Hot obviously knows because of the screeching he hears from the shower in the morning. I’ve told my other best friend. Most of the coworkers from 1996 are long gone, and so I have to explain to a whole new group of people. I figured I’d practice on y’all (don’t you feel special?).

I don’t want anyone to feel sorry for me - so please don’t make me cry - I spend alot of damn time on my makeup now and I don’t need to spend MORE time fixin’ it. But, if you know of someone that shares my unique ability to lose my hair, do let me know. If you have any questions - let me know. If you just want to go “Damn, girlfriend….” that’s okay, too.

And if you’ve made it this far, I’ll share one more picture with you. This is what happens when you forget to turn off the flash and take a picture in the dirty mirror - but you can see my bellybutton!

—- Okay, so I did give you a little of the sexy - because you listened. —-