Titles, Inc.

Intrusive Music

It was such a brilliant phrase that I stirred myself awake to write it on a slip of paper on my night table. In the morning I read “teetered but held.” Hmmm. Not bad, but what was teetering? I could not remember the blog I was writing in my mind. I was probably dreaming it, but nothing remained except the three provocative words.

Here’s something I do wake up with – music in my ears that stops only when I am talking or listening to something else. Over and over I was hearing "Silent Night, Holy Night, All is Calm… " and this was well before Christmas. Almost immediately after being beset by this most uncomfortable can’t-shake-it music, I read about it. No solution, but a name. It’s called an ear-worm.

Shortly afterward I had an office visit with my doctor and asked how to erase it from my head, and he laughed, “A friend just told me he keeps hearing “It’s a Small World After All.” I don’t know why it struck him funny. Well, it wasn’t singing in his head. I tried to change songs. All I could come up with was "Sing a Song of Six Pence." I got stuck and sang to Art, ”The maid was in the garden…” I stopped abruptly and looked questioningly at him, and he obligingly sang, “Hanging up the clothes.” Yes, now I had a whole new song. It started a pattern – different songs would sing in my head. This morning I woke up to, “You’re in the army now, you’re not behind the plow, you gotta get up….” Good grief, WWII. But mostly it’s “Round yon vir-irgin mother and child…”

So, who out there knows about ear-worms and how do I get rid of this background head music? Help!

--- Florence

Being Blonde

After Chemo treatments you lose your hair.  (If that were the only thing you lose…)  It’s a gradual process and rather disgusting when you find chunks of hair in your comb.

When my hair was wisps around my head I bought a wig  approximating my own hair – medium brown and wavy.  Actually it was much prettier than mine had been.  This was glossy, thick and bouncy, and $400. – ouch.                   

Two months later my pick-up walker and I fell down.  The walker was unscathed – I broke a mess of bones and needed surgery.  No point wearing a wig when your days are spent lying in bed.  It stayed on the closet shelf.                        

Then all of a sudden I had a cap of white hair.  This is about five or six months after the first Chemo. Soon after I had very curly, very sparkling white short hair.  Someone said, “I love your haircut.”  But the white startled me.  I had forgotten all the root touch-ups that kept me brunette. 

I looked around the rehab and all the ladies had white hair.  And they were old!  I knew that as soon as I escaped the rehab it would be straight to the beauty salon – for blonde hair.

Why blonde?  Why not?  I remembered the refrain from a hair product that said, “Blondes have more fun!”   I don’t remember the product, but the mantra stuck.

So there I was, in Blake’s chair picking out the color from among the pictured models in his large book.  Timidly I chose a pale blonde.  After the whole process and the shampoo that soaked the back of my shirt,  I was at the mirror with the wet towel on my head.  He whisked it off,  and there I was – still white.  He said defensively, “That’s platinum blonde.”  I said, ”That’s white.”  He said, “Do you have time?  I’ll repeat the process.”  He did.  And he whisked away the towel – still white.  I guess my stubbornness goes down to my roots.  I went back the next week for the promised do-over.  “OK,” I said, “Let’s go for a little more yellow.”   

So finally I am a blonde. Do I like it?  Not really.  My visiting LA. daughter said, “You look adorable,” or did she say cute. I believe her, and my husband, when they say they like it.  I pause at every mirror I roll by at the house. I’m not sure. 

There’s one thing I’m sure of – I had more fun as a brunette.  But then I had two dancing feet.

 ---Florence