Schumer's No-Longer-Secret Shame Inspires Me

 A Coupla Reasons Why Amy Schumer is my New Favorite Celebrity Mom

Image: Wikipedia

1.  Her kid has a great name.  First of all, Gene is an underused classic.  Secondly, she actually changed her son's middle name when she figured out he might get teased--her kid was originally known as Gene Attell (genital?) but she changed it to Gene David.  Some people would've dug in their heels by emphasizing the slightly-less-crotch-y pronunciation, but instead she admitted it was a little weird.  And she fixed it for the kid's sake but still figured out how to honor her friend with that middle.  Nailed it.

2.  She's real about her mental health.  Trichotillomania is a stigmatized thing, but we all have our freak flags folded up somewhere.  Amy let that sh*t fly, even though I don't know of any other celebrities who've admitted to yanking their own head hair out compulsively.  Full disclosure: I have been known to do this--both the blurting out of what used to be shameful secret for the whole damned world to know, AND the freaky hair-pulling thing.  It started when I was stressed to be driving one of my kids somewhere every day in a sh*tload of Bay Area traffic.  Now that I've allowed myself to notice what I'm doing, I'm trying to stop.  It's complex and weird, and I'm a little balder than I would be otherwise, but it happens to some of us.  If someone makes a G.I. Jane joke about me I'm hoping Joe doesn't react too poorly, though.

Santa Cruz Versus the World

 A Comparative Photo Essay

Everywhere Else, USA:

[Ho-hum street names having to do with sports]

Santa Cruz:

[Straight to the point: Old Big Trees Rd, along Hwy 9]

[Actual street names en Español: Quién Sabe Rd, Scotts Valley]

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Namespotting:

Reeva  

Anson  

Nash 

And *this* lady on Facebook.  I don't make fun of too many names as a general rule, but I can't stop laughing when I say this name out loud.

Apparently this is her real (married) name--I know because I made the blunder of publicly asking our mutual friend on her Facebook post.

I totally thought it was an awesomely disgusting, double entendre nickname and that she was my kinda people...yeah.  No.  It's her real name.

She ended up sending me what my father-in-law calls a "nastygram" (p*ssed-off rant of a message) over FB messenger, calling me out as a stupid, terrible person for making fun of someone's name like that.

True, true.  To be completely honest it was more out of amazement than b*tchiness, though.  But by then I was laughing too hard to explain myself, backpedal, or apologize properly, so I just blocked her like the grownup I am.

Also me, inside my head:  [Honey you do realize you don't have to take your husband's last name?  Way to take one for the team.]

Then again, if Joe's last name were Butt, I still would've taken his last name, too.

Wheel in the Sky

 I am almost thirty-nine years old.  I live a blessed life.  Most of the time I feel like I've totally "won" a 7th-grade game of M*A*S*H--

Youuu willlllll....live in a house, marry a surfer, live in California, have six kids, and drive a purple SUV.  

Sweet!

"Green?  No, WAIT, I want a do-over."

Then again, the Fortune Teller in the Sky threw me this--

You will discover that you have been living with a weird cancer syndrome from the moment you were conceived.

You'll also turn out to have bipolar disorder.

Your unflappable and largely-agnostic husband will find himself praying his @ss off for nothing but the restoration of your health.

It's something called MEN1--Multiple Endocrine Neoplasia--Type 1.  Neuroendocrine Cancer.  It's an inherited (autosomal dominant) kind, meaning there was a 50/50 chance of my having had it passed down from my particular family.  A somewhat rare (but not that rare), often slow-growing suite of tumors.  Mostly pancreas, parathyroid, and pituitary, but sometimes involving other neuroendocrine tissues--for instance, parts of the lungs.  I used to think I had all three of the classic tumors, but my more recent scans have shown that I just have the pancreas and parathyroid stuff.

"Cancer" and "tumor" are always scary words.  But it's really not that bad.

I found out about the MEN1 in 2010, but there were weird signs before then, starting in my teens.  But the random manic episode, culminating in the diagnosis of bipolar disorder last summer, was completely out of left field.

MEN1 can be a "good" cancer to have, in case you are ever in the business of choosing one.  It’s cancer in slow motion. Lots of mostly-uneventful scans and bloodwork.  Weird hormones, but not terribly so.  Three parathyroidectomies, but the last one was a rousing success.  I am not nearly as chronically exhausted as I used to be because now I don't have hyperparathyroidism anymore.  I am hypoparathyroid, but although I have to take a lot of calcium orally, this is a hell of a lot better than the "moans, stones, groans, and bones" accoutrements of having too much calcium in the blood.

There is a big-@ss scar on my neck.  Sometimes children stare at it.  Sometimes I think I should make up a cool shark attack story or some equally-implausible superhero origin story about it.  But in any case, I think it's pretty badass that someone slit my throat three times--in a controlled and consensual manner, nevertheless—and I lived to tell the tale.  And it reminds me every day that I've survived a little bit of sh*t.

I am also stable on psychiatric medication now.

Not this kind of "medication", but maybe something like it would have helped.

I am surviving this stupid bipolar sh*t, too, and am so very, very lucky.

I'm watching the paper Cootie Catcher start to unfold for my teenagers and hoping the big game of M*A*S*H smiles kindly upon them, in turn.