ponytails and fairy endings

The OneArmGirl Facebook page got a facelift this week which, I think, added some panache. What's that? You didn't know we had a Facebook page? Check it out here.

In other news, the wind has arrived. If you are not from the southwest region just above Mexico, in a state with so little imagination as to be named after that country, you may not know to what I am referring. But to anyone from around these parts, the wind signals the arrival of spring.

And it has been much warmer, but I don't pretend to enjoy the gusts that signal the turning of the season, sending dirt swirling into the air and one hapless plastic bag into the tree outside my window. The bag has been in the tree for at least three days now.

It wouldn't be so bad if I were bald, but I happen to have a full head of already prone to be unruly hair. There's just something unnerving and generally unprofessional about the way wind picks it up, swirling it one direction and then the other, in a seemingly intentional anarchic revolution against any attempt at style. It flusters my brain.

This reminds me of my currently dire need for a ponytail. My contact at the Ponytail Project headquarters emailed this week to inform me that though progress has been slow, research and engineering go forth...the one-handed ponytail cannot be stopped. Apparently, none too soon if I'm supposed to make it through Spring.

But that is my goal, to make it through Spring. The year certainly did not start off as I'd expected. I never expected to spend New Year's Eve in a snowcat with a Mountain Guy. I certainly never expected to find myself dating him, doing laundry at his house, picking up his daughter at the bus stop, and staying up until 4am in his arms. Coming from such different backgrounds, we wanted so much in common. He played baseball and I like baseball guys. I loved his strong tattooed forearms. He loved my butt.

But seriously, we both valued sincerity and simplicity and service...and apparently the letter 'S'. My hand fit into his, fingers laced, almost like they'd been made to do so. I imagined drinking coffee with him in our country house before heading out to work, each using our respective skills to serve the community.

Then, last Sunday, we broke it off.

And why am I announcing this in the middle of a post, after such superfluities as Facebook and ponytails? I suppose because I couldn't think of a good way to announce it, and when I don't know what to say, I generally say something silly. Breakups can be a number of things, but they are rarely silly. 

Silliness aside, I've spent the last few days cleaning and crying, in no particular order. It's not a bad break, but I would argue sometimes it's the nicest splits that hurt the worst; kinda leaves you wondering how things could have been different. But there isn't really an answer. There was conflict, sure. His Italian passion ruffled my German stoicism, the sociologist could argue. But history tells us that didn't keep them from getting into bed together.

Perhaps a recent trip to the zoo should have tipped me off. After befriending a particularly sociable bird named Velcro (for obvious reasons), we thought it would be fun to get a picture of him nibbling on Finneas. So, while one girl frantically tried to get the shot, and I hoped Velcro didn't get too hungry, another bird somehow managed to poop on MG's T-shirt.

The conversation went something like this:

Me: "Hurry, just take the picture!"

MG: "But I just got pooped on!"

When we first met, MG said he "knew we'd be doing time together." I laughed when he told me this, asking if he meant "like Bonnie and Clyde?"

He was right, I reflected this week. But it's almost like we wanted it too much. Perhaps we just missed the mark on the sort of time we'd be doing. I think we'd make solid friends, and as allies, I doubt anyone could stand against us. I can't help but muse that if we'd stayed together, we may have ended up criminals on the lamb. Then again, this is post breakup by three days, so it could be the beer talking.

It's rough. What can I tell you that you don't already know. We love, we laugh, we cry...and then we do the dishes, because unlike love, washing is fairly straightforward.

And washing the dishes actually feels really good just now. And cleaning the toilet. And making my bed. These are the things of life that go on. I feel at peace––maybe because I know the dishes have to be clean before they can serve another meal. How nice and secure in purpose to be a dish.

So, check out the Facebook page and like it. Put your hair in a ponytail if you feel so inclined. Try to love the people in your life the best you can, and I'll see you here next week...

OneArmGirl

life of crime and climb

You may recall several posts ago, I wrote about a particularly trying day. Well, I've decided this post is a sequel to that, which we shall call 'Ever have one of those days...part 2: The Week.'

It started with me getting four traffic tickets in one day. How...gasp...what...gasp....did you do that? Well, I'll tell you. I was on my way to the mountains to see Mountain Guy and Co., when I apparently paused at a stop sign rather than coming to a full stop. OK, there was no getting around that one. But then the officer who kindly pulled me over issued me a written warning because I could not find my insurance card right away. Now, was that necessary? I ask you.

What happened later that day was even less necessary. I was on my way home from Wing Stop with some sort of hot meat pieces, sometimes known as hot wings, but this particular variety looked more like something vaguely resembling meat, masquerading as hot wings. But I digress.

I had just turned onto a new road and was aware of a car tailgating me. Then I saw a person in the middle of the road ahead, but did not realize this person was a police officer until I was passing her and she yelled at me to stop. Stop I did, and then the car behind me stopped in my bumper.

Twenty minutes later, I left the scene with less-than-hot wings and citations for speeding and careless driving. Thankfully my car only suffered minor scuff marks on the bumper. My morale, however, was nearly totaled.

But the next day brought renewed resolve and a taste of imminent victory. I drove to my aerial fabrics class in the morning (very cautiously). This alone was a victory because I'd missed the week before when I was sick. I nearly passed out during the warm up, but as the class progressed, so did I.

Interestingly, my instructor had developed tendinitis in her left elbow, and was forced to baby that arm, putting the greater workload on her right arm. After I struggled through pull ups on the fabric, holding on with only one arm, I was delighted to see her struggle to do the same with her good arm.

"Wow, that's hard," she said breathlessly. I tried not to beam. Actually, it was unexpectedly encouraging to be reminded how challenging it was for me, when I am used to watching more bilaterally gifted individuals accomplish in a few lessons what I struggle with for months.

Then yesterday, what started as an innocent trip to the salon for MG to get his wooly hair tamed into a new do, ended with an emotionally charged discussion of challenges to the harmony of our attachment. For the third time this week, I found myself pulled to the side of the road. My black-eyed ego was starting to feel nauseous.

Did I not get the memo about a shift in the cosmos?

I decided to walk to the courthouse today. I don't know if this was because I'm feeling strapped for cash or because I didn't feel like looking for a parking spot, or just to stick it to the man in whatever small way I could.

There is little more demoralizing than traffic court. I sat in a room of benches with other lawless ragamuffins, called up to speak to the judge one at a time in front of everyone.

"You can plead guilty or not guilty," the administrative assistant explained. "Or, you can plead no contest, but that could lead to jail time."

Jail time! I tried to imagine myself behind bars. It was a strange few seconds. I decided to plead not guilty, though I did consider how jail time for the one-armed girl might make for a good blog post. I'm not above anything, law included, when it comes to getting good material. I did want a chance to tell my side of the story, but the judge would have to do for an audience.

When I returned home and opened up my email, I found a message from the agent I had queried for representation of my memoir at the beginning of the year. She "regretted to inform me..." You know the rest. So I opened a new folder on my desktop called "Rejections" and plunked it in.

The highlight of aerial fabrics came at the end of class, when my instructor found a way for me to climb more than my previous record six inches off the ground. With a classmate sitting as a base on the fabric, I was able to hook each foot in one ribbon and work my way up like a lizard scaling a wall. Finding myself a few feet from the ceiling, I was elated. Several people took photos; helps to be a freak.

But having that photo as proof of just one obstacle overcome is getting me through this week.

It might even get me through my upcoming trial. Or maybe I could get it tattooed for cheap in jail.

OneArmGirl  

colorado triangle

It takes approximately seven hours to drive from my home to Denver, on a good day, within the speed limit. That being said, I have spent between five and twelve hours on the road getting to Denver.

Little Gen making lemonade.

One of my earliest memories is making the trip with my best friend and amateur private eye, Agent A. We left on a Friday night at rush hour. Two hours later, we left our city limit. Ah, the folly of youth.

Somewhere around Antonito, nearly into Colorado, I was complaining about the constrictive nature of my jeans.

"Why don't you take off your pants," Agent A advised.

"Uh, that's OK," I said, eying her strangely. I spent the next several hours wondering why my best friend would suggest that I drive in my underwear before it was clarified that she had actually meant, "take off your pants and put on another pair." Well, why didn't she say so? I'd thought we were in the middle of a poorly budgeted...not to mention dangerous...lesbian porno. Obviously, I've never watched lesbian porn.

On the road, again.

We were ten minutes from our contact in Buena Vista, who was waiting in her truck on a snowy night at the post office, when we unwittingly went left at the split when we were supposed to go right, and ended up driving an hour out of the way into the snowy moonlit mountains. At one turn, I swear there was a huge antlered deer looking straight into the driver's side window.

But last summer was, by far, the worst blunder in the history of driving to Denver escapades, for which I take full responsibility. As you may know, there is one freeway which goes the entire way from Albuquerque to Denver; all one must do is stay on that freeway for the quickest route. Little Gen, her boyfriend Asif, and I were on that freeway. Then for some inexplicable reason, aside from a previously set pattern of detour, an hour into our drive, I took us off said freeway.

And thus began a twelve hour tour through northern New Mexico into southern Colorado. To add insult to injury, Little Gen's SUV was in the habit of bucking violently back and forth when it became overheated, so we had to stop and let it rest every half hour, making for some scenic photo ops, but very tired and frustrated travelers.

OneArmGirl making lemonade.

We did, however, get to see a black bear and her cub cross the road in front of our car, which I consider to be well worth the additional five hours of driving time.

This past weekend, Little Gen, Mountain Guy, and I headed north once again. We actually managed to stay on the freeway this time which, combined with LG's average 93mph, put us in Denver about five hours after we left, brief stop at the outlet mall for underwear notwithstanding. Unfortunately, we drove into the city just at rush hour.

But we did eventually arrive at our final destination, the home of the aforementioned long-suffering contact who was then a rafting guide living in her truck. Now, she and her husband have a lovely old wood-floored abode in the Denver suburbs. It's a stones throw away from a coffee shop from which MG carried fresh brews each morning to his late-rising traveling companions.

When we left on Sunday morning, MG almost immediately started us down the wrong road and, after a bit of shopping downtown, it was discovered that I had left my pillow at our weekend hosts' house, necessitating a twenty minute back track. LG was unnaturally quiet in the backseat.

Denver, I love you, really. If it's not you, it must be me.

OneArmGirl     

a woman's issues

I had a doctor's appointment today. I was also feeling unwell, but there was no direct correlation. I'd actually made the appointment in November, so it was a small miracle that I remembered to go at all.

This particular doctor, who is actually a nurse practitioner, specializes in women's health issues, of which, if you are a woman, you know there are many.

When she said, "In a nutshell, tell me why you are here," I almost laughed in her face. I had, in fact, spent the previous day and a half worrying about whether or not I could remember all the issues I have to tell her. When I schedule an appointment with a doctor, I feel I should fax over a health memoir ahead of time.

Examination room

Sitting in the examination room waiting, I had time to recollect the countless times previous that I've waited on doctors, often clothed scantily in an over-sized medical frock. I think we don't use the word "frock" nearly enough. It sure is more fun than wearing one, anyway.

You know the drill: first they take your blood pressure which, incidentally, they seem to prefer doing on your left arm, which always creates a humorously awkward musical chairs episode whenever I'm in the hot seat. I once had a nurse insist on taking blood from my left forearm before she finally actually looked up from her clipboard at me and saw that I didn't have a left forearm.

I've learned to extend grace to medical professionals (they have to work all day under those fluorescent lights, after all), but my limb deformity is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to comprehending my medical situation. These days I walk into hospitals with the excitement of a jaded doctor looking forward to another day of babysitting interns.

This time, I was frock-less and fully clothed, thankfully. But the room was still sterile, both in decoration and instruments. There is something decidedly unfriendly about hazardous waste bins and tongue depressors keeping you company while you wait.

Examination room with intrigue.

It's not the first time being trapped in an examination room has inspired some goofiness. There is something about awaiting a health professional to size me up that puts me over the top, and I'm suddenly spewing sarcastic observations like I have one-liner turrets. Since I was alone this time, Finneas got top billing. An examination room is an examination room, but an examination room with a tiny deformed arm appearing like King Kong's finger poking in––now that's an Alfred Hitchcock.

But when she finally did arrive, it was surprisingly refreshing to learn that this particular physician was already surfing on my wave length. Our consultation felt more like a gossip session at the local beauty salon. I'd even brought coffee with me, for moral support. We giggled and talked about ignorant endocrinologists like a couple of nerdy med school students. She obviously had a huge crush on vitamin D. And she told me it was more healthy to drink heavy cream with coffee than half and half. I would now trust her with my life.

I came out with a scroll of a blood test order. But I am confident that I will learn everything a 30-something woman needs to know about her body...just as soon as I find a lab that accepts blood by the half gallon.

Yesterday, Mountain Guy gave me a Natalie Merchant album for Valentine's Day. When track two started to play, he said, "This is a song about you..."

'Doctors have come
from distant cities,
just to see me.
Stand over my bed,
disbelieving...
what they're seeing.

They say I must be one of the wonders;
God's own creation.
And as far as they see, they can offer
no explanation.'

Well, if the shoe fits...

OneArmGirl 

 

cent-e-postal

As you are most likely unaware, today's post happens to be the 100th post here at OneArmGirl.

[Pause for rambunctious clapping, kazoo blowing, and the release of a hundred white pigeons]

I make this bold assumption because I, the OneArmGirl, have been neurotically checking my post count for the past month to make sure I didn't bypass this auspicious week. I freaked out two weeks ago because I thought I'd missed it.


I am calling it my Centepostal Anniversary. 'Cent' for one hundred; 'postal' to commemorate the fact that I haven't gone postal with the upkeep of this blog and my weekly commitment to posting.

I do realize one hundred posts is no big deal to you post-crazies out there who publish something on your blog every ten seconds on average. I, however, am not a real blogger. I'm not even a real blog follower. Most blogs barely hold my attention––not because they aren't brilliant––but because I'm allergic to computer screens. Celebrating my own blog's centepostal is really more miracle than accomplishment.

I have a migraine. No, not because of blogging; no relation––I just happened to wake up with one today, on my centepostal. Though, come to think of it, it's been my habit since youth to get sick on birthdays, holidays, and other special occasions. Guess I don't deal well with excitement.

But since when did we let our disabilities ruin the party around here? Happy Centepostal to me and happy Centepostal to you!

I love you all.

Now I'm going to bed.

OneArmGirl

PS. Just kidding about the pigeons...and the kazoos...and as you may presume, not a lot of clapping going on around here, either.

ever have one of those days...

When you wake up and your throat feels funny?

But you get up anyway, because that's what you do in the morning. And as you're waiting for your coffee to boil up in the stovetop cappuccino-maker, you remember that Little Gen was sick yesterday, and she is probably sleeping in because she still doesn't feel well.

But eventually she comes lumbering out in her red and white striped boxers.

"Can you make me some oatmeal?" she says pitifully.

And you want to say, "I'm sick, too," but you're always sick and it would just sound like you are trying to one-up her sad condition. So you make her some oatmeal. You even put butter and brown sugar on top, per her request.

Then your Mountain Guy calls and you ask him to bring DayQuil and paper towels. The paper towels are not because you anticipate any messes, but because you are out of paper towels.

You should have been anticipating messes. When MG arrives, he kindly offers to make your treasured home remedy, hot ginger lemon honey water, but when he pours said concoction into a glass, the glass immediately cracks, crumbles, and hot ginger water flows across the counter and down the cupboards.

[It should here be noted that this is quite uncharacteristic for MG, who is quite expert at practical physics far beyond the ability of glass to sustain boiling water, and he would be mortified to think that you might unthinkingly attach this singular incident to his character profile.]

It is worth noting that MG himself has been suffering some sort of allergic reaction that's left his head and sinuses a bit murky. You offer to pour him a glass of the juice he brought, but you don't notice the huge crack in the glass you choose.

"That glass is leaking," Little Gen helpfully points out. You don't think to ask why it was cleaned and put back in the cupboard, but return to the kitchen to transfer the juice into a new one from your rapidly diminishing collection.

By 12 o' clock everyone is ready for a nap. MG leaves to run some errands, but before you and Little Gen can find safety under covers, she accidentally knocks a mug of mint tea over the vintage stereo cabinet. You start to wonder if the paper towels are a blessing or a curse.

You go to sleep before anyone can spill anything else.

When you wake up, it's time for vaulting class. You don't want to go, but you invited two new girl friends to come check it out and you don't want to let them down. This effort requires one grande whole milk two pump pumpkin spice latté from Starbucks before you go to pick them up. Try saying "two pump pumpkin spice" several times and even you will be sorry it's your favorite drink––especially when you go through the drive-through.

Nevertheless, latté in hand, you are on your way to class, friends in tow. You have two friends you didn't have last week. They are excited. Things are looking up.

Then you arrive and realize you always keep your vaulting shoes in the bag that you didn't bring. Your coach is not feeling well, either. And the only other person coming to actually vault went to the right address in the wrong county and won't be arriving for another forty-five minutes.

But you didn't get this far in life being a quitter. The show must go on...

You are helping to get the horse ready when your cell phone rings. It's MG's middle daughter calling to tell you that she thinks you should talk to her older sister. Older sister gets on the phone. She tells you that the boy that likes her threw her backpack on the ground at school. Of course he did, you think. How do you explain to a middle school girl that middle school boys are more like some alien life form than human? It's just best to watch them from some distance, you reflect; preferably in a hazmat suit.

When I was a child, my mom read me a story about a little boy called The Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Day. I can relate, but it neglected to mention that those happen in adulthood as well. I wish I could blame it on the arm, but I'm pretty sure my own arm is ashamed of its association with me today.

Suffice to say, I am happy it's dark now, the day is over, and I'm home safely, no hot liquids within reach.

OneArmGirl

the ponytail project

There is something exciting afoot. Or, more accurately, at hand.

You may recall a former post in which I outlined the two most disappointing things that I am unable to do as a one-armed girl. One of those two was putting a ponytail in my hair. 

Shortly after the post was published, I got an email from my good college buddy Mike, who is now a professor of engineering at a college in the northwest. He asked if I would mind some of his students working on a solution to my ponytail dilemma.

Prehistoric prosthetic

Mike previously spent a considerable amount of time studying something to do with engineering and rocket science––at least that's what I remember. I'm sure he will be disappointed at how much I was not paying attention when he was explaining it to me; it's just that most of the time when Mike tried to explain something to me, it sounded like "blah blah... engineering... blah blah blah." I was an English major––if he had explained it in terms of relational or plot development, we might have been on the same page. All I know is that I saw a picture of him floating weightless in an airplane.

So, I felt pretty special when he emailed. I mean, to think that helping a one-armed girl get a ponytail in her hair is a priority right up there with advances in rocket science. Take that, NASA. Maybe if you had put more money into something practical...I mean, how many people need to get to the moon and how many people need ponytails. It's not rocket science, people.

I, of course, gave my full permission to Mike's proposition, but then heard nothing more about it until this week, when one of his students emailed to say that he was on a team working on (what I choose to call) Project Ponytail. 

This very professional sounding young man requested that I elaborate on the issue I am having; that being, putting a ponytail in my hair with one hand. So, in my best engineer-ese I explained the necessary requirements. I may have used words like "functionality" and "demographic." Apparently, I can parrot engineer-speak, if I can't understand it. I may have also used the phrase "resistance may be critical"... Thanks, Mike, for the years of exposure, from which I at least gained some skill in imitation.

If the team wasn't laughing from the beginning of my email, they certainly were when I suggested "consulting" other people with long hair requiring ponytails. Sometimes I have to shake my head at myself.

As I clicked 'Send,' I suddenly had flashbacks to a similar situation. I was having my last prosthetic arm built. Perhaps a bit more complicated than a ponytail-maker, but the custom design for the shoulder of the arm, specifically, took hours and days of fittings and adjustments. The resulting leather patch with a hole that rested atop my tiny shoulder was functional, and an amazing testament to the patience and persistence of my prosthetist. But it was a tiring and frustrating process nonetheless.

Blueprint

Now I was imagining months of Skype consultations with seven engineers on my monitor, scrutinizing my scrunchy. If you don't know what a scrunchy is, good for you. And you obviously were not around for the '90s.

But I was immediately afraid that the task set before these poor youngsters was close to impossible. My prosthetic arm, which cost close to the price of a new car, is now living in the back of the closet with clothes I haven't even seen for years. 

I suddenly thought of my helpful engineers, willing to take up my cause, as unsuspecting victims of the sort of physics dilemma that would make Einstein's head spin.

These students probably picked my project because they thought it would be easy. I mean, it's just a ponytail, right? Oh the naïveté! Little do they know Project Ponytail is going to make building wells in northwestern Africa look like a piece of cake.

But I received another email today, so it seems Project Ponytail goes forth. And now, I have to email all the hair gadgets I've tried over the years that ended up at the back of my closet with the fake arm. Maybe these guys (or girls) are less naive than I had feared. I hope I can be of some help.

Stay tuned...

OneArmGirl