Girl Detective

Girl Detective

( 9:15 AM ) Girl Detective

Amusing (to me at least) addendum to the Breakfast Club story.

My sister Ruthie wrote me with more perspective. I had remembered that she and her friend Dancing Queen had invited Mom and Dad to go with them to see Breakfast Club. I'd thought that they were either being goodies-two-shoes (anyone else care to have a go at that plural?), suck-ups, or both.

Instead, the two of them had planned to sneak into some R-rated movie, but told Mom and Dad that they were going to see Breakfast Club. Mom and Dad said, "Oh, we heard that was good. We won't just drive you, we'll go with you," and invited themselves along.

D'oh.

So Ruthie and Dancing Queen were stuck in their lie, but I got to experience a pivotal moment in my adolescence.

Did the parents suspect that something was up, or was their foiling of the plans just dumb luck? Hard to say. I realized in my twenties that my parents knew a lot more than I thought they did, but less than they thought they did. Perhaps we'll just call it a draw.

***

About the blog: I'm going to try a new schedule of updates. Rather than trying (and sometimes failing) to update each morning, I will post Sunday to Thursday evenings, so there will be a brand new blog each weekday morning. I'll see if it makes things more consistent. Let me know what you think.

I won't post this Sunday, though, since Monday is Labor Day. I'll start Monday night for Tuesday.

See you then.

( 9:27 PM ) Girl Detective

Hypochondria: the End?

About a month ago I noticed some bumps under my skin that didn't seem like they belonged. I fretted, then emailed my sister Ruthie, who said they sounded like lymph nodes--nothing to worry about. Relieved, I figured I'd ask when I went in for my annual. I couldn't get an appointment for two months, though, so I thought I'd call the doctor's office just to be sure.

I described the bumps over the phone to the nurse and told her they might just be lymph nodes.

"Oh, I don't know about that," she said. "You should definitely get those looked at, and don't wait."

Alarmed again, all the more for having been lulled into what now seemed a false sense of security, I began to channel Janeane Garofalo's character from Reality Bites and imagined I was dying of cancer instead of AIDs. I quickly made an appointment.

The 48 hours until I saw the nurse-practitioner seemed like an eternity. She did some cursory poking and prodding.

"Those are lymph nodes," she announced, "and they're perfectly normal in size."

I suddenly felt enormously silly, which is a depressing way to feel when you're in an examining room with your pants off and wearing one of those awful gowns. Also, it seemed to me like she had me pegged with the scarlet H of the hypochondriac and was trying hard to make a quick exit.

As she backed away, I asked her if the recent weight loss from the wheat-free diet might have made a difference in my noticing them. She admitted that it might have done. Aha, I thought as she closed the door behind her. Everyone has these bumps, but mine used to be cloaked in a layer of fat.

I dressed quickly and made my way home, cursing my foolishness. Ruthie had been right all along and the nurse had probably been covering her butt. I guess "Take two aspirin and call me" went out the window with the rise in litigation. I can't really blame her. A friend of mine works in a nurse call center; she says she's terrified that she'll give someone the wrong advice and is often overly cautious.

So if I'd waited till my annual I would've heard the same thing, though an hour and a co-pay aren't much to learn that I'm normal. The trouble is, I'm almost always normal. While my years of hypochondria have produced some brief spates of peace of mind, more often they've resulted in numerous co-pays, invasive procedures and a complete lack of any diagnosis other than stress, which only served to increase my stress. So my hypochondria, rather than ensuring that I know what's going on and am reassured, has actually made me poorer, less healthy and more anxious.

That appointment was the end. It's time to stop, I decided. I hope it's that easy to break the habit of a lifetime.

| ( 10:18 AM ) Girl Detective

Breathing Troubles; or Hypochondria: the Beginning of the End

Over a year ago, I began to have breathing problems and met with a GP to investigate. He gave me a lung function test (result: normal) and said I should have an echocardiogram to rule out anything serious. I told him I’d think about it.

Based on prior experience with invasive, uncomfortable tests that showed nothing was wrong, I decided to try alternative therapies. A very healthy friend gave me the name of her chiropractor.

He used a series of tests and told me I should not be eating wheat. I was upset but not surprised. While my diet was mostly all-natural foods, it was far too heavily carb-based.

Cutting wheat out of my diet was difficult and I had an initial month of feeling miserable no matter what I ate—probably withdrawal. But then my energy level improved dramatically, my digestion became normal (I hadn’t realized how messed up it had been before), and though I only shed a few pounds I often got complimented on how I looked. "Healthy and strong," someone at work said. The diet change seemed to be a good one.

I was still having trouble breathing, though. It got worse when I ate something with wheat, but it was bad sometimes even when I had not.

I talked to my father, who apparently had overcome his predilection for "Oh, you’re fine." He named some possible diagnoses and recommended I go back to the GP.

The GP gave me the same test as before and received the same normal results. He again recommended that I get an echocardiogram, plus see an allergist.

For the echocardiogram, a lab tech smeared K-Y like stuff all over my naked chest then jammed a monitor over it in various places, taking electronic pictures. She apologized for the discomfort and that she couldn't tell me how things looked. I later learned they were normal.

The allergist tested for the usual suspects plus a few more. "You show no reactions," he said. "Not even to things you were allergic to previously. Whatever your breathing problems, they're not from allergies. I shouldn't say it like this, but perhaps your trouble is stress." He waited for my reaction.

Ruefully, I agreed. I tended to take on too much at work and at home and I rarely relaxed. After a year of various doctors and treatments, I realized the breathing was a metaphor for how I often felt--as if the walls were closing in.

When G. Grod and I went out for sushi to celebrate my clean bill of health, I saw a woman who looked familiar sit down behind Grod. I tried not to stare in my attempt to recall how I knew her.

"What are they talking about?" I whispered.

"Myocardial infarctions," he replied, puzzled.

Aha. "She gave me my echocardiogram."

Grod looked at me gravely. "You should pay more attention to women who smear goo on your chest."

( 8:35 AM ) Girl Detective

Tonsils II, or Origins of Hypochondria

After surgery to remove my tonsils, I woke shivering and in pain to find my father by my bed in the recovery room.

"You look like shit," he announced. "Can I get you anything?"

"Cold," I croaked. He returned with a blanket and told me that the doc had pulled my green-goop oozing tonsils out and said they were the worst he'd ever seen. Dad stayed until I stopped shaking and then saw me up to my room where I would spend the night. He said my mom would check back with me later and that the nurse would be bringing me Tylenol #3 for the pain. Mmm, codeine.

I dozed off, then woke with the sensation that someone had shoved a hot poker down my throat. I buzzed for the nurse, but got no response. My young roommate had just received several hundred stitches after an attack by a neighbor's dog; she had received her pain medicine and was asleep. I buzzed again and a nurse came in, whispered that she would bring the medicine, then disappeared. She didn't come back. I buzzed, once, twice, three times but no response. I whimpered quietly.

This continued until my mother arrived. I managed to squeeze the details out of my ravaged throat. "Pain...drugs...nurse!"

My mother, suffering maternal pangs of guilt from her earlier abandonment of me, went off with crusading zeal to find the nurse. They both returned with the precious, precious codeine, which I poured into my throat before realizing that swallowing was a whole new type of hell. But it was codeine, so I managed.

When I returned home the next day I was visited by friends, who brought balloons and a chocolate milkshake--my favorite--from Harold's Dairy Bar. I began to sip it, though, and nearly passed out. My friends noticed my near lack-of-consciousness, called my mom then beat a hasty retreat. She took away the milkshake and called the doctor, who apologized that he hadn't told me that I shouldn't drink out of a straw for a week. Oops.

So you'll forgive me if, over the years, I've been concerned about aches and pains and sometimes second-guessed the medical establishment's first response. Nonetheless, I am more convinced than ever that I need to wean myself from paranoia about physical symptoms and the subsequent visits to a doctor only to find there's nothing wrong. Over the course of thirty years there have been a few bad things like the tonsils that needed attention and got it: sprained ankle x2, wisdom teeth, childhood allergies and a bad complexion that I was far too reluctant to treat with Accutane. But there have been far too many other things that I've agonized over and over-treated. One recent experience with breathing troubles nearly decided me, then another last week pushed me over the edge. Basta, as the Italians say. Enough.

( 1:35 PM ) Girl Detective

Last night my husband G. Grod and I had our annual visit to the Minnesota State Fair with friends M. Giant and Trash. I know that there are other reasons to visit the fair, such as informative and educational displays, livestock, musical entertainment, people watching and more. I go for the food. In previous years I’d slavishly believed that I needed to have some sort of entrée before indulging in an odyssey of junk food. This year I discarded that notion in order to free up valuable stomach real estate.

Our food odyssey began with lemonade, which we followed with batter-dipped potatoes complemented with both ranch and cheese sauces. Our next stop was the newly remodeled Foods building where, compared to previous years, there was a lot more neon and a little less oppressive smog from the gallons and gallons of boiling oil. We procured fried cheese-curds and funnel cake, then made our way outside for root beer, which we polished off just as we arrived at the french-fry stand. We doused our order with vinegar and ketchup, then followed Trash’s determined strides to the roasted-corn stand.

After the corn, we felt a bit woozy and tried to walk but didn’t make it past Sweet Martha’s cookie stand, where the lines moved strangely and slowly. I think their pattern was influenced by Ayn Rand, so Trash was able to navigate them quickly. You couldn’t simply stand in one line and eventually get served—you had to leap forward when the opportunity presented itself. Those who didn’t seize initiative and serve their own interests never got cookies. But oh, when you did, they were delicious, warm and plentiful.

Trying to slow down, we decided to visit the giant butter sculptures of the dairy princesses’ heads. As usual, I was horrified and fascinated, but I was unable to leave the dairy building without food, so I got a vanilla/chocolate twist cone.

Dangerously full and in jeopardy of spoiling our mission, we humored the whim of Grod and walked the length of the fair to visit the closed and mildly interesting light-rail car display. This allowed for just enough digestion to accommodate a lemonade and bag of mini-donuts as we made our way to the exit.

As we rode the bus back to the park-and-ride, dazed from our sugar- and fat-fueled adventures, we agreed that we were full but not ill, so our gourmandian mission was a success. At least until I decided to have just one more cookie. That was a mistake.

( 8:13 AM ) Girl Detective

It's the pre-season and I'm a football widow again. I'm holed up in the dank little cubby that houses our computer while my husband G. Grod sits in our spacious living room and watches the Eagles game on the television and periodically makes loud, emotional outbursts.

I had intended to start a women's book group so I'd have alternate plans on game days, but the road to hell has a brand new brick because I've done no such thing.

So tonight, as I went out front to get dinner, Grod asked if he'd get lucky tonight. I told him it was likely but that it certainly wouldn't be while the annoying game was on.

"I think we can effect a compromise," he said.

I gave him a quizzical look, then asked him to spell it out for me. "Are you saying that if we have sex you'd turn off football? When you refused to go out for sushi with me earlier because the game was starting in an hour, even though we have TIVO and you could have skipped all the commercials and boring crap in the middle?"

He didn't miss a beat. "Yes."

Wow, I thought, I know how much he loves the Eagles, but apparently not as much as he loves bonking me.

I was flattered for a moment, until he spoke again.

"It is just the pre-season."

Ah well. I'll take what I can get. And so will he.

( 10:44 PM ) Girl Detective

Girl Detective finally comes up on Google. I feel like I've made the pros or something. I'm not a Damnhellassking or anything, but it's a very happy moment.

Many thanks to Trash for noticing the nod from Google, and for the links from M. Giant, Chicklit, Ian Whitney, Local Interest Section, and McGyver5. Thanks also to Scarlet for sending me that psychological test that everyone enjoyed so much.

I couldn't have made it without you.

( 7:56 AM ) Girl Detective

I don't want to be a hypochondriac, really, I don't. I have tried not to be and failed. I think it stems largely from two things. One, my father is a doctor, but the kind who has to be dragged kicking and screaming to see a doctor himself. Growing up, if my sisters and I had aches and pains he would wave his hand in dismissal. "Oh, you're fine. Go out and play." He said this once when I had a sprained ankle as big as a cantaloupe. (On the other hand, he was savvy enough to be a proponent of avoiding antibiotics unless necessary long before the days of skin-eating bacteria. So I'm not dissing my dad, just saying he had a tendency to be, um, less than sympathetic.)

Two, I had a bad tonsil experience. In spite of years of strep infections, I didn't have my tonsils out as a child. Anytime a doctor would see them he'd comment, "Wow, those are some tonsils." At seventeen, I had a series of sore throats, while my tonsils developed a coating of white crap and got bigger. I became alarmed. Even my dad agreed I should see a doctor. The ENT, however, remained calm in the face of my giant, yuck-frosted glands. "We shouldn't bother the tonsils unless they're bothering you," he intoned.

I replied that I appreciated his caution, but I was having trouble swallowing. I also drew his attention back to the white stuff. He said that if I was that bothered by them, then I should take a week of antibiotics to see if they improved. If they didn't, he'd take them out.

A week later, there was no improvement. I'm sure my teenage smoking habit didn't help the situation but he didn't ask about it and I didn't offer. We scheduled a date for the surgery.

My mom brought me to the hospital and was shooed out of the room by a nurse, who gave me a shot in preparation for the big event. I assumed this was an anaesthetic, which would slowly knock me out. I became increasingly more anxious as I was wheeled downstairs and wasn't yet unconscious. Then I became really anxious because my doctor told me they couldn't perform the surgery without parental consent and my mom had disappeared. They paged her and waited, then called our home and left a message. Finally they found her. She doesn't remember where she went that day, but I think she and my grandma went to Valu City.

Still anxious about being conscious, I was finally wheeled into the operating room. I asked why I wasn't already asleep. The anaesthesiologist told me that it was because I hadn't yet been given an anaesthetic--my earlier shot had been an antibiotic. He hooked me up to an apparatus and told me to look at him and count backwards.

I began. "Ten, nine, eight..."

He raised his hand to wave. "Bye!"

To be continued...

( 9:27 AM ) Girl Detective

Yesterday on my walk to the gym I passed a group of men by a bus stop.
One of them looked at me then pronounced in a booming voice. "Big legs!"

His tone was approving, but I wondered what universe he lived in that
announcing to the block that a woman had big legs qualified as a
compliment.

"You do a lot of running?" he called out, as I'd already passed them by.

"Never!" I was out of earshot to hear his reply.

( 7:30 PM ) Girl Detective

My personal cold remedy

Get a bottle of echinacea drops. Put the requisite number of drops into a small amount of water.

Peel a small to medium sized clove of garlic.

Put the clove in your mouth. Chew once or twice. Swallow it with the echinacea chaser.

Experience unspeakable horror in your mouth.

Know that anything that tastes so godawful has to be scaring the germs out right quick-like.

My last cold was almost exactly a year ago. I think my body learned what would happen and has been on good behavior ever since.

| ( 10:16 AM ) Girl Detective

The problem with naming a favorite anything is twofold. One, I fear that someone will make fun of me. "Oh, she likes that. What a philistine." Two, I might forget something that is more my favorite than whatever occurs to me at that moment. See my entry on beauty products. I am rarely satisfied that there is one right answer. I am forever questing for a better one.

Naming a favorite book was difficult. Naming a favorite movie is less so. The funny thing about favorites is that they're not necessarily the best. They're something that hit me hard at some point, for some reason(s) and their appeal has lingered.

I wish my favorite movie were Casablanca. I saw it for the first time in the living room of a junior baseball player during my first year of college. He was cute and a good kisser. It was a good way to be introduced to a such a great movie. But Casablanca's not my favorite.

Neither is Henry V with Kenneth Branagh. I saw it five times in the theater and even had a personal epiphany during the speech of St. Crispin's Day--I realized that I didn't want to move to New York and work in advertising. Years later I'm working in advertising though not in NYC so it wasn't the most accurate of epiphanies. I still think it's a great movie, though.

My favorite film became imprinted on me when I was sixteen. It's the Breakfast Club, which I know sounds like such a cliche. I was grounded for the first time during my junior year in high school--I had stayed out past 10 on a Friday without letting my parent know where I was. (Three more month-long groundings for progressively worse infractions would follow within the year.) I wasn't allowed to drive to school, go out with friends or have friends over. Then one Saturday night my younger sister and her friend were going to the movies and asked Mom and Dad to go too. They didn't know, as I did, that being seen with Mom and Dad in public was taboo. And M & D, feeling generous, asked if I wanted to go.

Oh, how I agonized. Be seen with them and accept their "generosity" when they were the ones responsible for my current exile over a piddling offense? I wallowed in my predicament before grudgingly admitting I'd like to go.

Sandwiched between my parents, I was a bundle of adolescent rage and insecurity. When the movie unfolded on the screen I felt like someone had read my mind.

Years later, watching with friends at a party, I still enjoyed it. When quizzed which character people identified with, nearly everyone said Ally Sheedy. I'm suspicious. I think people have adopted the identification with the weird chick because it's much more hip to be like that later than it was in high school. I suspect there were a lot more Anthony Michael Halls than people care to admit. I personally was a weird mix of the prissy Molly Ringwald and the nerdy AMH. No need to wonder why I wasn't getting dates in high school. And that's without even seeing the freaky asymmetrical haircut I had senior year.

( 11:10 AM ) Girl Detective

There is a question in the forums at Chicklit here that asks "What is [the] one book you can't imagine your life without, that's truly a part of you, that you know every nook and cranny of?"

I couldn’t think of a quick response. I'm a book woman, I thought, how can I not have an answer to this question? I wasn't devoid of answers, though. I had several, but none of them felt right.

Many of the candidates were books I’d read between 3rd and 5th grades. There was Anne of Green Gables, Little Women, Dragonflight by Anne McCaffrey, Down a Dark Hall by Lois Duncan, The Crystal Cave by Mary Stewart, Mistral's Daughter by Judith Krantz, Eight Cousins by Alcott, the Trixie Belden series, The Narnia books, and A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle.

I'd read and re-read these as a girl, but none of them recently. Were they books of a certain place and time, soul mates once but now relics of my childhood?

I tried to think of books I loved that I’d read more recently. There was Pride and Prejudice, a sort of package deal with the A & E mini-series and Bridget Jones' Diary. I love the latter for its clever references and its sympathetic-without-being-deprecating acknowledgment that smart women can sometimes act crazy and dumb.

Mysteries of Pittsburgh by Michael Chabon jarred me out of my college stupor of trash reading, and Possession by A.S. Byatt spurred me to apply to graduate school.

A Girl's Guide to Hunting and Fishing by Melissa Banks and About a Boy by Nick Hornby both had such moments of sweetness and insight that I wanted to ingest them as food for my soul.

Examining this list, there is a big gap in my life as a reader. It happened somewhere between 5th grade and sophomore year in college. I was still a reader—mostly horror and romance novels--but what I read didn’t stick with me. I think I missed out on a prime time for "books that I love" imprinting.

Another factor is that I rarely re-read books now. I've accumulated so many on my "I should read" shelf that there's always something good begging (or guilting) me to pick it up rather than an old favorite.

Then again, is it really possible to pick just one? Unlike spouses, I’m allowed to have more than one favorite book at a time.

In honor of the question, I am in the midst of a re-reading binge. I began with The Facts and Fictions of Minna Pratt by Patrician MacLachlan, a sparkling little jewel of a book. I am in the midst of Francesca Lia Block’s Dangerous Angels series. I would also like to pick up Pride and Prejudice, Possession and Little Women again to see how they're doing.

I miss being a re-reader. I like things better when they become familiar. I should not let my giant pile of new books intimidate me. Some people aren’t re-readers so I think it dishonors the rest of us who are for me to stifle my inclination. From here on out, I vow to be a better re-reader. But I don’t think I’ll ever be able to pick just one book.

( 11:23 AM ) Girl Detective

I feel responsible for the death of Jerry Garcia. Yes, I know the excess weight and years of drug abuse probably had something to do with it, but the timing of his death was too convenient. It has haunted me ever since.

Between 1990 and 1995 I went to an average of 10 shows a year. I was dating a man who had been a deadhead for much longer and the shows became integral to our relationship. I learned things like the structure of a set, the likely mix of songs, and the culture of the parking lots. It was at Dead shows that I became comfortable dancing in public.

Most people who know me can't picture me as a deadhead and I'm not surprised. I hardly fit the stereotype. I had tie-dyed tees and bootleg tapes but never wore Birkenstocks, had dreads, got stoned or lived out of a VW van. I was there because I really liked the music and because the guy I was with LOVED it.

He and I broke up in July of '95 and it was an ugly one. We'd been engaged and living together so there were many repercussions. Among them, I wondered what I was going to do about the Jerry Garcia Band shows in NYC that fall. Should I go anyway? Who would I go with? What if I saw him there?

My questions became moot the morning I heard the news on the radio. Jerry Garcia, dead of a heart attack while checked into a rehab to detox. Too little too late for Jer.

I went home that night, put several cds in the player and hit random. The first song was "He's Gone" and I burst into tears. I sobbed my way through "Brokedown Palace" and "Ripple", only to really lose it again on "To Lay me Down". I was beginning to think my random button was possessed until it played a Brent song, "Just a Little Light", forcing me to hit the skip button and collect myself.

Jerry's death was a strange punctuation to the end of the relationship. It took away the decision about whether to keep up with the band. I'd been fervently hoping to avoid the awkwardness of the September shows and my wish was granted, though once it was I yearned to take it back.

The Dead became part of my past like the rest of the relationship. I'd occasionally listen to cds, but didn't follow the other members' careers, or listen to cover bands. Ironic how the band had a revolving door for the Spinal-Tap-drummer-esque keyboardist, but came to a screeching halt with Jerry's passing.

Every August, I see ads for a tribute concert. I feel sad and guilty because Jerry's death indirectly made things easier for me. Perhaps I need to stop feeling guilty, though, and instead feel thankful that I got to hear all the great live music that I did, and that when it was done, it was done. Because how often does life have tidy little endings like that?

( 9:17 AM ) Girl Detective

Every week I walk a labyrinth. A labyrinth is not the same thing as a maze. A maze has many paths, many of them false. A labyrinth has only one path that you take to the center and then back out again. It is a meditative tool. I walk because it calms my monkey-mind.

I feel a little strange writing about this; and I always feel strange talking about it. I feel as if I can't admit to a spiritual pursuit because people will view that as a weakness or a sign that I lack critical awareness and intellect. Which sounds rather silly when I write it down, but there it is. When I was studying for a master's degree in religious studies I observed that the students tended to be one of two extremes: atheists/agnostics, and those who were actively practicing a particular religion. There weren't many on-the-fence folks like me.

Every Thursday I walk an eleven-circuit canvas labyrinth hosted in a local Methodist church. The first labyrinth I ever walked was mown into the grass at a gathering of the Re-Imagining community, a radical feminist spiritual group. I immediately was drawn to this new experience. I tend to have two speeds: manic and dead stop. Walking a labyrinth slowed me down to something in between.

One of my favorite parts of the evening is walking in the door. The woman at the desk who buzzes me in is named Sandra. She always smiles when she sees me and welcomes me. We chat while I put a donation for the labyrinth in an envelope and she wishes me a good evening. Our interaction is usually brief, yet it is a high point of my week.

There is something gratifying about someone being so happy to see me that it makes me almost bashful. We don't share a lot with one another and don't seem to have much in common. But I carry the warmth of her greeting with me through the week and am buoyed each time I experience it.

When I lived on the east coast I knew someone with whom I had similar interactions. Bruce is a friend of a friend and I would see him periodically. I had a terrible time remembering his last name, where he worked and other details yet I always loved it when I saw him and he always greeted me with a huge smile and engulfing hug.

I think what is so significant about my encounters with Bruce and Sandra is that they know me very little, yet greet me as if I am a dear, long-lost friend. And the enthusiasm isn't off-putting, as perhaps it sounds like it might be, but instead is affirming and esteem-building. It also provokes an element of humility--what on earth did I do to deserve the good will of these kind people? As far as I can tell, nothing, so all I can do is try to return the favor, at least to them and perhaps to others. This last is the tricky part. I know just how rejuvenating this unconditional friendliness is, yet practicing it to the world at large feels tremendously risky. Perhaps that’s why it feels so remarkable when I experience it from others.

( 9:55 AM ) Girl Detective

Occasionally I become possessed by the spirit of a home economist and try weird do-it-myself beauty gigs. These periods often coincide with low checkbook balances, so it's really not that mysterious.

A while back, my formerly curly hair became medium wavy. I tried new products and new styling techniques, to no avail. (And no, I wasn't pregnant.)

Around the same time, I read a beauty article in the paper. It said to add baking soda to shampoo to cleanse the hair of styling product build-up. Aha, I thought, my problem is build-up.

I also read a tip in Natural Health magazine on making an exfoliating scrub using sea salt and essential oils. I loved this idea—no need to buy that expensive tub of Origins Salt Scrub when I could make my own. Combining this with the baking soda tip, I could create an inexpensive home-spa experience.

First I prepared a small bowl of sea salt from my local grocery cooperative and added drops of two essential oils. The salt seemed a little too chunky but I thought that the texture would improve in the shower.

I began my shower by adding a couple of teaspoonfuls of baking soda to my shampoo, lathering with visions of the return of my thick, curly hair.

Next I took a handful of the salt mixture and began to rub it over my skin. The salt chunks did not dissolve into the nice sludgy bits in the Origins product I was trying to imitate. Also, peppermint and grapefruit might be fine scents on their own, but produce a unique and not entirely pleasant funk when combined. So I was rubbing big, sharp hunks of salt on my skin that smelled weird, when I smelled something really bad. Ammonia. On my head.

The baking soda must have interacted strangely with the shampoo. I let out a shriek then began to rinse as fast as I could, seized with visions of my hair being singed off from chemical burns or at least turning green. To make matters worse, the salt bits were sluiced onto the shower floor and painfully embedded in my feet. I began to hop up and down, trying to dislodge them.

Finally I managed to rinse off all shampoo and hunks of salt. I exited the shower and checked the mirror. There was no permanent damage. But I also found out that my hair hadn't changed--it was still the apathetic wave of before. But no result was better than no hair.

Currently, I am out of my usual facial toner. It's a product from the Dr. Hauschka line, so it has natural ingredients that are harvested by the light of a blue moon in the foothills of Germany by chanting monks, or something like that. In any case, the ingredients and the preparation make it pretty expensive stuff (or "spendy" as they like to say here in the midwest; I don't, but they do.)

Since I'm still paying off bills from the last vacation just to get to the point where I can save up for the next vacation, I'm trying to be frugal. So I took the bottle of rosewater I purchased for some obscure recipe (turkish figs, I think) and have been using that instead.

I worried that this homemade nonsense would backfire. Could rosewater go bad? I had no idea how long it's been in the cupboard. Did it attract insects? Would I wake up in the middle of the night with creepy-crawlies on my face?

So far, so good this time. It smells a little strong and sweet and I can't tell if it actually has tonifying effects, but I'm not in pain. I’ve decided to feel just a little bit smug that I'm not plunking down twenty odd dollars for a bottle of toner.

Take that, Dr. Hauschka.

( 1:04 PM ) Girl Detective

Last night I went out for pizza--delicious and worth every bit of not feeling well--then out to see Patty Griffin. Her coppery hair, powerful vocals and tremendous raspberry shantung party frock all inspired to me to compile a list of my favorite fictional kick-ass redheaded women. (Their red hair might also be fictional.)

Recommended soundtrack: Patti Griffin, Flaming Red

10. The Lunel women. (Mistral's Daughter by Judith Krantz) Three generations of savvy, capable women with interesting lives and careers, but who were all a little too forgiving of that crazy Julien Mistral.

9. Lola. (Run, Lola, Run) Franka Potente's bright red tresses were instantly iconic--perfect punctuation for the pounding movie and soundtrack.

8. Nancy Drew. (The books, not the TV show since neither Pamela Sue Martin nor the lame replacement Janet Louise Johnson had red hair.) Nancy was smart, independent and had a cool convertible, a rich dad, loyal friends and a boyfriend who she had to sometimes rescue.

7. Satine. (Moulin Rouge) As played by Nicole Kidman, she battles consumption, belts out her own songs and is willing to give up the diamond life for cute poet Ewan McGregor.

6. Anne of Green Gables. Remember, it's Anne with an "e". Anne was a great girlhood heroine. She was refreshingly normal and irreverent and never cloyingly pretty, smart, or anything, really.

5. Dana Scully. (X-Files) Gillian Anderson's straight-arrow skeptic is brainy, professional and never squeamish no matter how many autopsies she has to do.

4. Jean Grey, or Phoenix. (X-Men) A powerful telekinetic with a more interesting dark side than most. Though married to good-guy Scott, her lurking passion for Wolverine just won't be denied.

3. Willow Rosenberg. (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) An ever-more powerful Wiccan babe until she got a little too hooked on the hocus pocus and had to go cold turkey. She fell off the wagon in a big way after the tragic death of her lover Tara, but was brought back from verge by her old pal Xander.

2. Batgirl, a.k.a. Barbara Gordon. (From the Batman comics, not from that wretched movie.) She kicked butt as Batgirl and had dark, sexy interactions with Batman and Nightwing until she was brutally shot by the Joker in one of the most memorable comic stories ever, Alan Moore's The Killing Joke. Not a victim, though, she continues to fight evil as hacker-genius Oracle.

1. Angela Chase. (My So-Called Life) Claire Danes skillfully brought all the misery and joys of adolescence to life for an all-too-brief 19 episodes. We never found out if she wound up with bad boy Jordan or smart, angry Brian. My money was on Jordan in the short term but Brian for the long haul.

( 4:15 PM ) Girl Detective

Inspired by Friday’s depressing trip to a Chinese restaurant and aided by a fun website, I waxed poetic today.

"Devoid of Wheat"
Or "The Celiac’s Lament"

(A "feeling sorry for yourself" darkly gothic poem created with the Goth-o-Matic™ Poetry Generator.)

Hungry.
The sustenance for which I pine
Is denied, forbidd’n by a cruel apothecary
All hope fades to pale nothing.
I subsist on faint imitations.
How could those that I loved cause me such pain?

In creating this poem I also used some of the Darkly Gothic Tips, such as #8: "Blow it way out of proportion", though I may have taken some license with #2: "Choose an appropriate subject."

( 6:57 PM ) Girl Detective

Friday I went out for Chinese food for the first time in many months. My friend M. Giant's story of his favorite Chinese restaurant's demise spurred me out of inaction. Hey, I thought, I'm lucky enough to have a favorite Chinese restaurant, so I should go.

There is a reason that I've avoided Chinese food for so long and it's not inertia. Because, really, what is Chinese but the cuisine of inertia? You just don't want to cook and the thought of doing dishes makes you want to perpetrate violence upon something.

No, the reason I had been avoiding the Chinese restaurant is that I have been diagnosed with a wheat sensitivity and advised to stop eating things like cereal, pizza, pasta, and bread. Can't imagine? Neither could I. It gets worse.There is hidden wheat in many things. Including soy sauce.

Don't believe me? Check a label.

So this dietary restriction has been a festival of fun for me and G. Grod. He's especially cranky about it because the diagnosis came from a holistic chiropractor who Grod thinks is a quack. Perhaps, but I've felt much better since changing my diet.

Until I went to the Chinese restaurant on Friday. I'd avoided it till then, thinking that most things were made with soy sauce so it would be difficult. But there had to be sauces made without soy, and some of the wrappers and such had to be made of rice flour, right?

Initially, things went well. Our waitress did not speak fluent English, but she understood no wheat, flour or soy. I ordered a couple things and off she went.

She returned and said that I couldn't have the hot and sour soup. Did I want something else? She tried to describe something but I couldn't tell if she was saying "cream cheese" or "kimchi" and I couldn't tell how it mattered. We agreed on an egg roll.

The owner/cook appeared at my table, looking sorry for me. He shook his head and said that few things had no wheat and no soy. I asked what my options were. "Boiled chicken. Sauteed vegetables. Steamed rice."

Boiled chicken? How depressing. I asked if he could do fish and he nodded. When our dinners came, Grod had a lovely plate of beef with broccoli in a savory dark sauce, with a side of fried rice and an egg roll. I had a plate of white rice, little white curls of fish and sauteed vegetables in a pale sauce. I tried to like it, but it was as bland as it looked and every time I looked up Grod was happily munching down some soy-drenched bit of deliciousness. I felt like crying. Instead, I gamely finished every bit on my plate, thanked the waitress and the owner for their help and assured them it was wonderful.

Since then, I've decided that such restraint is inhuman. I'm going out for pizza tomorrow night.

Gastric consequences be damned.

( 8:01 AM ) Girl Detective

Sometimes I can't just be happy with a good thing. There is something in me that persists in wondering if it's the best thing.

I wore the same scent for almost 15 years. It was Calyx, by Prescriptives. I wore it, it smelled good on me, people associated that smell with me and I liked it. Nonetheless, for each of those 15 years, I would still try other perfumes. Sometimes I'd even buy one or two. But I'd never use them up as I did Calyx and would eventually throw the bottle away, still 3/4 full.

Before a recent trip to a friend's wedding I went to Nordstrom to buy a new bottle. The woman behind the counter said, "Oh, Calyx! I used to wear that in college. I love that scent." Huh, I thought, that's annoying.

When we met friends before the rehearsal dinner, I gave my friend Christina a hug and she said, "Oh, you smell just like you did in college!" She said it with affection, but that was it. After 15 happy years it was time to move on.

I didn't hold out much hope for success in finding a new fragrance. I'd been looking all along and had never found anything else. I tried going with designers whose clothing lines I liked, like Donna Karan and Marc Jacobs. I liked the idea of wearing their fragrances since I really can't afford their clothes. But no dice. The name, the bottle and the ads are all good, but the smells just weren't.

Over time I've had some success. On my dresser are the following:

~Coco Mademoiselle by Chanel, which G. Grod actually likes
~a mini of Lolita Lempicka, which my sister Sydney said reminded her happily of Dimetapp
~a full-size bottle of a pink Escada scent that I got for free in a recent cosmetics spree, which I think smells like berries but those aren't listed in the description.
~Jo Malone's Amber and Lavender, too heavy for work but makes me feel like I could kick ass and take names if need be
~the newest addition, Kate Spade's honeysuckle fragrance, which reminds me of one of my first favorite fragrances from Avon

The associations with college forced me to move on from Calyx, but the same urge for trying to find the best plagues me elsewhere. I've found a mascara that I love, Bobbi Brown's Thickening formula, yet I still may purchase Prescriptives False Eyelashes Plush, just to see.

I think this particular madness is inspired by the culture of beauty magazines. Too many for too many years has me thinking that there's no such thing as a timeless classic, just whatever happens to be the editor's pick of the month.

( 11:04 AM ) Girl Detective

I recently found out I'm emotional. This was a surprise to just about everyone, including me, except for my husband G. Grod and my sister Ruthie. Apparently they're not as easily duped as the rest of the world.

My team at work took a test to determine our preferred methods of thinking. This test is similar to Myers-Briggs and is called Hermann's Brain--not to be confused with the short-running sitcom Herman's Head.

According to Hermann the brain can be segmented into left, right, upper and lower for four possible thinking styles. Reductively, the upper brain is conscious while the lower is instinctive; the left is factual while the right is intuitive.

The four quadrants then break down like this:

Upper left: Logical
Lower left: Organizational
Upper right: Creative
Lower right: Emotional

No style is exclusive but what the test purports to show is a person's preferences. Based on responses to a series of questions, each person is assigned a rating of one, two or three based on their relative strength in each area. The purpose of group exercises is usually to show "it takes all kinds" to build a holistic team. But I work in the creative department of a marketing division. Almost without exception the people on our team had ones in creative and emotional, and twos in organized and intellectual. We figured someone else in our department had to be strong in those skills, because otherwise nothing would ever get done.

My job, though, is in something of a grey area. I'm an editor and responsible for factual details like copy standards. So when my results (which we shared as a group) showed that I was primarily emotional, then creative and distantly organized and intellectual, the people I work were surprised. They thought that I would be organized. I had thought that I'd be intellectual since one of the identifying words is "critical."

Somewhat rattled that so many people (including myself) had guessed the wrong preference, I made some phone calls after work. My parents thought I'd be organized first and emotional last. My sister Ruthie picked emotional first. My sister Sydney picked the same as my parents. G. Grod's stepdad got it right but his mom got it wrong. It was a very disorienting week.

Was the test wrong? I didn’t think so. At work I like to be organized and analytical. But on my own time I like to interact with friends, read, watch movies and write. So I send out mixed messages.

Intriguingly, this public/private split is detailed in an astrological chart I had drawn up many years ago. So does this mean astrology is true? Or that Hermann’s Brain is nonsense? Neither? Both?

All I know is that since I got the results, I’ve felt like I have tacit permission to act less intellectual and more emotional at work. No one seems to have felt the whiplash but me.

( 8:20 AM ) Girl Detective

G. Grod and I saw Signs over the weekend. It was quite good. Not perfect, but still good. There were a few things that bothered me though.

There are no plot spoilers, but if you haven't seen the movie, don't read this. Go see it and develop your own opinion. Then come back and decide whether I'm full of it or not.

***

In reverse order of how much they annoyed me:

6. The director acting in the movie. Hitchcock's cameos were clever. Acting takes things a step too far. It's too self-conscious.

5. Mel Gibson's age. He is supposed to be the father of two kids, one about ten and one about four. According to imdb.com, Mel is 46, and while it is possible that he could be the father of the children, he looks about twenty years older than his supposed brother, Joaquin Phoenix.

4. Mel's weird religion. His character is a former clergyman who people keep referring to as father and to whom one woman insists on confessing. But he was married and had two kids, so he obviously wasn't Catholic. Yes, I know that a few Episcopals use the "father" term, but confession is almost uniquely Catholic. The movie gave him the trappings of Catholicism for the plot, but a family to develop his character. The two meshed strangely.

3. Bucks County, Pennsylvania is not small-town America. It is a large collection of wealthy suburbs outside of both Philly and New York and just across the river from Princeton, New Jersey. There aren't many minister/farmers in Bucks County. And there would certainly be more than one policewoman. This movie took the quaint, cornfield trappings of Field of Dreams and set them in not-as-rural Pennsylvania.

2. A plot hole so large that it makes Bucks County look like small-town America.

And the thing that bothered me most:

1. Mel Gibson's hair. His receding hairline has that puzzle-piece jut that says, "I'm hanging in there--not bald yet." I tried to determine if the hair peninsula was done with plugs, but couldn't. His hair was so carefully styled in each scene that it was impossible to tell--even the running-madly-through-the-corn scenes. For each close-up, his forelock was brushed softly and carefully to the left, obscuring any tell-tale signs of plugs. I could hardly pay attention to the character development because I was so enthralled and frustrated by this suspiciously careful coiffing.

However, to his credit, it took me till today to remember that Mel's an Aussie--he plays Americans seamlessly. Plus I was scared silly the whole time; the sounds were particularly frightening and the sense of claustrophobia was palpable. Even though I took a few hundred words to detail my gripes, the movie was pretty good.

( 5:49 PM ) Girl Detective

I was in my friend Scarlet’s office yesterday while she pondered ways to earn a quick buck. She suggested selling a kidney. I countered with selling our eggs. "Ew, gross" she remarked. "How much can you make?" I told her I thought it was something like a couple thousand because it’s really painful. "I could donate plasma," she mused, "but my mother would disown me."

I nodded. My own selling-body-fluids-for-money story isn’t pretty. I was in college and out of money. A hospital research project needed blood donors. I made an appointment.

I showed up on a Tuesday morning, after too much beer during Monday Night Football. The kid taking my blood was a student like me. This made me nervous but I was determined to get paid. When I became dizzy, he loosened the tourniquet and my vein collapsed. His energetic twisting of the needle didn’t start things up again and his boss told me I had to give a full pint to get money. I made an appointment for the following week.

The bruises on my arm faded just in time. Not having learned my lesson, I was again hungover from the night before. This time the bleeding went off without a hitch, though. The kid got a bright red, puffy plastic pint of my blood, well seasoned with Busch. He told me I could go. Relieved, I went to the elevator. As it began to rise I felt dizzy and the cute guy next to me looked at me strangely. When the doors opened I stepped out on the wrong floor and then paused, disoriented. Cute guy had stepped off too.

"Are you ok?" he asked. I shook my head, started to say no, then wondered how I got on the floor at his feet. In case this sounds even vaguely romantic (she fainted on the cute intern!) I realized with great shame that I’d farted stinkily when I passed out. Valiantly ignoring this, he helped me up and to the nurses’ office.

The nurses were suitably outraged that the kid downstairs hadn’t made me rest. After about 45 minutes and a glass of water I thought I could make it back to my dorm. The nurse agreed. "You look normal now. You looked green when he brought you in. He sure was cute." I nodded sadly. I’m sure he ran far and fast in the other direction after he dropped me off.

I called my mom when I got back to my room, hoping for sympathy. Instead I got my dad. "Serves you right, giving blood for money," he growled. I figured that the fart had been part of my cosmic payback. In an alternate reality I might have gone to the hospital to donate blood for a drive and met the cute guy and started a happy romance. Instead, I fainted and farted and never saw him again. I did get $25 for the blood, though.

( 4:15 PM ) Girl Detective

A year and a half ago I developed a crush. I fancied that there might be more to it than infatuation; perhaps it even had long term potential. I passed the object of my affection each day as I went to work but I never said anything. I didn’t mention it to my husband, either. I knew he would not understand.

After months, I decided it was time for us to meet.

"May I please see that Marc Jacobs bag?" I asked the saleswoman.

"Of course," she purred as she eyed me up and down. She seemed to conclude that I could afford it, because rather than giving me the polite mmm-hmms she turned on the charm.

"It’s an exquisite bag. You have marvelous taste."

I swung the soft leather of the handles over my shoulder. A perfect fit. The orange-red blended saucily with my coat. The warm yellow stitching and interior were perfect complements.

The saleswoman drew my attention to the details. "Look at how well it’s made. The hardware is impeccable. "

I nodded, then steeled myself for the price tag. $770. Disappointment swept through me.

Rather than whisking the bag out of sight of the unworthy, the saleswoman pressed her suit. "It’s a classic piece you will have for years. Not everyone can wear something so distinctive."

I nodded, but I was beginning to enter the Kubler-Ross stages of loss. I had already been in denial, thinking that I could possibly afford the bag. I moved swiftly into rage. $770? A small family could live on that for a week!

The saleswoman wasn’t done. "I won’t lie to you. These things don’t go on sale. Do you have a charge account? If you open one, you can get 15% off the purchase."

I did the math. It wasn’t kind. Anger began to fade to grief. I told her I’d think about it. I mentioned it to G. Grod that night. He thought the idea of an $800 bag hilarious. Which did nothing for my mood, stubbornly stuck in grief with no sign of moving on to acceptance anytime soon.

I was crushed the day I saw it was no longer in its case. I visited Ebay, but that style of bag (the "Wonder) rarely appeared and never in the right color. Worse, it usually sold for almost $500--hardly a bargain.

A year and a half later I was browsing through the clearance rack when a red bag caught my eye. Off the rack, its true nature quickly became apparent. The red was the wrong shade, the stitching was white and it did not even seem to be made of real leather. But for a brief moment, I’d been reminded of my dream bag, and that was enough. I looked at the price tag, then laughed. It was $35.

I snapped it up before someone else could get it. While not the beauty of my dreams, for $35 I decided it was close enough.

( 8:11 AM ) Girl Detective

I mentioned an embarrassing incident involving Michael Chabon in a previous entry. Chabon (pronounced, I think, SHAY-bon) received scads of critical acclaim for his first novel Mysteries of Pittsburgh. His second novel Wonder Boys was made into a movie starring Michael Douglas, Tobey Maguire and Frances McDormand. He recently won the Pulitzer for his third novel, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. So he's doing pretty well for himself.

I've been a fan for several years. As an undergrad, my usual extracurricular reading material included fashion magazines and books by Stephen King and Judith Krantz. Somehow I heard about Mysteries of Pittsburgh, probably in Vogue, and sought it out.

I loved the writing; I loved the story; I loved that one of the characters was named Joe the Egg. It stirred my long-dormant hunger for real books, driven into hiding during adolescence when I was mocked for being a brainy chick. I reveled in my new identity as a reader.

I complemented my undergrad degree in marketing with a masters in religion, with much coursework in literature. I have worked in two comic-book stores and a used-book store. I never have enough room for all the books I wish I had the time to read. Much of this can be traced back to that literary jump start I received by reading Chabon's Mysteries of Pittsburgh.

So when I heard that he had written a new book about comic-book history and that he was coming to the local independent bookstore, I was thrilled. I made plans to meet friends for the reading. When I arrived, I saw other people I knew and began to talk as I scanned the crowd for my friends. I saw someone I recognized and gave a big wave and a smile.

It was Michael Chabon.

I had recognized him from the photos on his books. To his credit, he smiled back at me. I did not, as I was sorely tempted to do, run screaming from the store. I stayed for the reading and signing. When I got to the head of the line I felt it best to pretend that I hadn't made a complete ass out of myself earlier. I asked him why both MoP and Wonder Boys included weird scenes of violence against dogs. He paused to think about this, then responded that being mean to dogs is wrong so it's a metaphor to show how badly things are messed up. I nodded, he signed my book and off I went.

This is actually not my most embarrassing moment ever. There are two significant others. One involved the senior vice president at work. The other involved Ed Rendell, former mayor of Philadelphia. Both of these took place in an elevator, though, so perhaps that is my superhero weakness. The Chabon incident happened in a one-story bookstore, however, with no elevator in sight. So I have nothing and no one to blame but my own silly self.

( 12:13 PM ) Girl Detective

As part of spring cleaning this year I signed up for a voluntary-simplicity class at my local food co-op. For two hours, the organizational consultant (who described herself as an aging hippie) went over simplicity theory and practices like recycling, consignment and donations. Most of this was not new to me. What I found interesting, though, were the contributions of the people in the class about their lives and their experiences.

A young mother of two was from an affluent suburb nearby. She wanted more alone time, and struggled with raising a family in a healthy environment without incurring misunderstanding from friends and relatives.

A group of three senior women had signed up together. They wanted ideas on how to deal with junk mail and paper in general. One of them had lived as a Benedictine nun, using the pronoun and possessive "we" and "our" rather than "me" and "mine" for twelve years.

A senior man had recently moved his wife into a nursing home. He’d recently sold the family home they’d shared for forty years and moved to a succession of apartments. There was a pause of respectful sympathy after he spoke.

A single woman in her thirties with carefully manicured nails and meticulously styled hair passed around containers of food to share. Within the past year she had lost both parents and a sister and had to go through their houses afterward. She confessed that in spite of having moved so many things out of her life recently that she was spending a lot of time on Ebay looking for antiques. Again there was a pause, then murmurs of sympathy for her difficulties.

A blond couple in their late twenties had recently returned from a trip through Asia and Africa. After living out of backpacks for eight months they returned with a new awareness that perhaps they didn’t need all the stuff they’d done without for so long.

Another woman said that she’d once sold her collection of horse figurines and later regretted not keeping them to give to her niece. She now found herself unable to get rid of anything.

The instructor kept nervously putting her glasses on top of her head then back down and fiddling with her hair clip. She hadn’t made enough copies and had forgotten to bring a bibliography. She apologized profusely, though everyone kindly assured her it wasn’t a problem. She didn’t strike me as an organizational person, though she clearly had a passion for the simplicity movement and a great deal of empathy for the different personalities and situations in the class.

Even without a break, the class went over and I left before it wrapped up. The parts about simplicity were fairly basic and not well organized. But the human interaction and the glimpses into lives so different from my own were certainly worth the five dollars I’d paid for the class.

Girl Detective the person is a titian-haired sleuth, intent on fathoming the mysteries of the world at large, with particular (and some might say obsessive) attention paid to the mundane details of female life.

Girl Detective the weblog is not about girl detectives; sorry if you came here looking for that. It is, however, an homage to the inquisitive nature, untiring spirit and passion for justice that marked these great literary heroines.

Girl Detective the weblog is a forum to practice my writing. It is about whatever strikes me on any given day. I am a woman writing for other women. If guys find it interesting, bravo. If not, that makes sense, but don't complain.

All material here is copyright 2002-2004 Girl Detective.

I was pregnant. Now I've got a baby.
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