Man-on-pause

I once went out with a girl that got so upset over a bad haircut you would have thought a loved one had died.  It was as though she believed she had doll hair and there was no chance of it growing out again.  I've accompanied a number of women shopping and always been baffled by how upset they can get over ill fitting clothes.  Ladies, when a man tries on a shirt or pair of pants that's his usual size and it doesn't fit do you think he bemoans his recent weight gain?  No, he simply claims that the offending clothes must be improperly cut.  It's never our fault.  It's always the fault of the small children in third world countries that are making these clothes and clearly screwing it up.  As soon as Fall rolls around (or whatever passes for Fall in LA) and it starts to get dark early my Lovely Girlfriend embarks on her quest to use up all of the heat that The Gas Company can provide.  It doesn't matter that it's still in the high seventies outside, she feels cold.  How about a sweater?  Then she'd be too warm, silly.

I've always been baffled by these consistently irrational behaviors displayed by you ladies.  I'm sure some of you are reading this and claiming you don't do this stuff.  Trust me, you do.  Don't believe me, take a moment and ask your significant other.  If they told you anything other than, "yes, dear, you do that" then you are in a relationship with a liar.  I'm aware that I am generalizing here and I know I'm not mining any kind of undiscovered comedy gold.  I don't care.  The point of all this is that I finally get it.  Ladies, I understand your pain.

It took five sessions of chemotherapy but I finally see how someone could go from hot to cold to hot to cold to hot to cold all in the matter of a few short hours while the temperature around you remains constant.  I was sweating like crazy then freezing cold then soaking my shirt through then bundling up all on a brief walk through the mall.  I considered buying a jacket.  A spur of the moment coat purchase!  Not in the history of shopping has a man (a real man) bought a jacket simply because he's chilly at a given moment. 

I now get worrying about your haircut.  Just today I debated getting a trim so the hair that's falling out in clumps won't be so long.  Maybe a shorter cut would keep it from falling out?  Would it look thinner or thicker?  Do I have a stylist that I trust to give me such a haircut?  I'm not exaggerating when I say this brief exchange in my head was the most I've ever thought about a haircut in my life.  Not at one time, all of the haircut thoughts, over the course of my entire life, added up, still wouldn't amount to that much.  Do I have a stylist?  Of course I don't have a fuckin stylist!  What the hell is wrong with me?

I'm beginning to think that one of the potential side effects of chemo is it turns you into a chick.  I tried on clothes today.  I've never gotten so pissed over not fitting into a shirt.  I stormed out of the store.  I got in my car, threw it into reverse, backed out of the spot and SLAMMED into a parked car!  No, not really.  The transformation into womanhood has not been so great that I've lost the ability to drive.  Also, I feel like I can still balance a bank account but since I don't have any money it's impossible to test if I've lost those facilities or not.  I'm watching Monday Night Football while I type this but I don't feel terribly passionate about the game.  I don't know if that's because of the two teams involved or the fact that the Yankees game is also on.  I do know that the Buc's colors of red and pewter are so 1999 and they should consider switching back to the creamsicle jerseys, orange is in this year... oh, no, it's worse than I thought!