Mushroom Topping

You'll have to bear with me, the eyes don't like the screen...so if I weave a incongrous tapistry of nonsense, you'll have to go read someone else's testicular cancer blog. Good luck with that.

This week's recovery was slightly better than last time, maybe more physically prepared, maybe more mentally prepared...who knows. The illness was there, but I packed my anti-nausea pills more closely to the belt. The toxic stomach came back, but the anti-acid's were at hand. I took the Neulasta (the long-lasting big brother hit of Neupogen) on Saturday. Same weird pain, mostly headaches...more prepared this time with my Advil on the side.

Sleep is still uncomfortable, especially as it cools down outside, your body likes to make excuses to keep you from venturing outside of the covers. So, as your bladder screams, your head pounds and your stomach wretches, it seems perfectly logical that you should wait another 15 minutes because the pillow feels good right there.

So, as I said, it is getting chilly. Not Toronto chilly, that's only for lunatics (snow!?!)...I won't even mention those who live in Ottawa. We're talking Atlanta chilly. A bit brisk, towards freezing at night, a breeze or two. Cool enough to realize that I need a critical addition to my cancer-wardrobe...a hat.

To most guys, this is a simple feat, you walk into your closet, pull out a salt/sweat stained nasty rag, place it on your freshly schorn noggin, and off you go. Doesn't work that way for me, since I was a child, no hat wished to be placed on my head. It would promptly bring ridicule and laughter as clearly a hat does not belong on my head. I've settled in recent years to the hybrid, green-hat option of the visor, I still force my head to feel the agony of global warming (those of you who know me, know the context of that statement...), while still looking delightfully good in the sun.

Anyways...for those that may have failed physics, have never seen a visor, or were otherwise unable to draw inside the lines during pre-school, the visor does not offer baldness-supportive warmth during such months. It behaves more like a chimney to freeze the core of my body capriciously with every breeze.

A toque/stocking cap seems to be the item of choice.

***Note***
This is where I clearly become a foreigner around here. Somehow the southerners have twisted the English language to accept TOBOGGAN as an acceptable substitute for toque/stocking cap. And as with all Southerners, there is no arguing, it is just the way it is. You point out what a toboggan really is, and that it would be a tad uncomfortable, even unfortunate, if one had to wear one as a hat...and their response is "I don't know what you're talking about, it is a stocking hat". "No" you say, "a stocking hat is a stocking hat, a toque is a stocking hat, a TOBOGGAN is a damned sled that kids use to ride down a mountain" "Well, its a stocking cap here." In "southern" I've learned that "here" actually means "so <bleep> off". That might be useful on any trips to come visit.
***End Note***


So, off to the store. With my supportive wife (from the "lay off the sauce" fame). We started with the mall, must be something classy, not too high-school oriented that I could pick up there, right? No dice. I tried on every damned shape and size of hat available...beanie to cowboy, dunce to bowler, toque to toboggan...all left my wife with the same glowing laugh, "you look like a mushroom!" To which she'd pat the top of my head and look for the next costume for my dress-up game. Upon the next try she might add "yeah, if you had hair, this one might look good". Damned if she weren't so cute I'd have tackled her right there in the store.

After a trip to REI, and what appears to be a military surplus hat, I now can be sheltered from the artic blasts storming Atlanta. However, supportive as my new hat may be, I'm unsure my crushed self-image will ever recover from the mushroom-ridicule of 2008.