"She look like a man"

So, a couple of weeks ago, Billy and I traveled down to King of Prussia for his pre-District Swimming Championship hair cut where I was reminded of that Mad TV skit with Ms. Swan where she is asked to make an identification of a suspect and she just keeps saying "I tell you everyting, he look like a man" ( if you are not familiar with this check out this Youtube). While Billy had his hair cut, I got to sit next to a woman who told me at least seven times that she thought I was a man when Billy and I first came in. First, she said that she made her evaluation based on my hair being so short; I had on my trusty baseball cap which does pretty much hide whatever little hair I do have. I guess if that was all you could see of me you could make the mistake of thinking I could be a man. Of course, I was wearing a red rain coat (I have not seen a lot of men sporting those) and cropped yoga pants (probably another fashion faux pas for men I would think) and sneakers but she assessed what I was wearing and came to the conclusion that I was a man because as she said "men wear sneakers". Well, bless her heart I guess they do. Next she pointed out that I wasn't wearing any makeup (nope, I usually don't) or any jewelry so that made her more sure I was a man. At this point I am sitting right next to her yet she still is going on about how she thought I "looked like a man" I think because there was still some lingering doubt in her mind. Her next step in evaluating my gender was that I did have longer fingernails but she knew plenty of men that had long fingernails so that didn't preclude me from being a man. In fact she listed two or three men she had come across who even had nail polish on (which I didn't). Eventually, she did work it out in her mind that I was a lady because I had a purse. So there you have it folks, from now on, as long as my hair is still short, I must carry a purse everywhere I go so that people won't confuse me for a man. I will have to see if I can workout at the YMCA with my purse slung over my shoulder. Now, I don't really believe this women was altogether "there", if you know what I mean, but it still stung just a little every time she said it. The poor hair stylists kept looking over at the women and me and rolling their eyes every time she repeated it. She had finished having her hair cut and was apparently hanging around in the salon waiting for the appropriate time to catch her bus which wasn't making the staff any too happy. They kept politely suggesting that she was going to miss her bus but she just continued talking and shredding the cheese sandwich that she had brought with her to eat into the sandwich bag; I, for one, have never thought of bringing snacks to the salon with me. I guess I am just lucky that she was still around when I showed up so she could tramp on my ego for the day and give me that purse and snack tip.





Patrick has been asking very politely to see what my hair is looking like so I thought I would post some more photos for you all to see. I took these today which is 3 months post chemo. Thankfully I do have my eyebrows and eyelashes back. Joanne, my friend and work out buddy, kept thinking I looked like I had eye makeup on when my eyelashes started growing back. Apparently, the lady from the hair salon wasn't fooled though. I have to say that I think the hair on my head seems to be growing way slower than the hair on my legs and under my arms. I am having a heck of a time keeping up with shaving those areas especially after having gotten used to having no hair there and not having to worry about shaving it (one of the few perks to chemo).