Ta-Tas and the Nomenclature Acceptability of 'Eskimo'

What is it about breast cancer that takes the spring out of everyone's step?

For serious. I feel like the inclination to gasp at the utterance of the aforementioned bad ju-ju comes from years of morbid conditioning. Cancer, and it's association with silent death, has become such an acidic and daunting word that those six little letters just bustle about bullying baby animals and throwing their hammy thunderthighs around everyone's cluttered workspace. And to be frank (because that's not my given name), I'll be DAMNed* if I going to let it ruin the naturally sunny disposition of my loved ones and their pets.

Last week my godmother (Gm), an opulently mezmerizing blossom of a human being, was diagnosed with breast cancer (See! Right there. Your bosom quivered just a little. You don't have to feel ashamed, mine did too, by design, when I was told by my mom over the phone). In the span of (carry the 4) like a week and a half, Gm has already been diagnosed and de-lumped (she was fortunate enough not to have to lose her breasts). Speaking of lumps and lump harbingers, what ever happened to mashed potatoes? You don't hear much about them anymore...hm. Anyway, I digress. When Mom told me that Gm's biopsy had come back positive, I was at a loss for words...but not in the way you might think. I stood there, in my apartment's living room with the half-finished Taj Mahal puzzle and the Optimus Prime pinata, and thought, "This is sucky. I am bummed. Shouldn't I be bummed? I should be bummed so I'm probably bummed. I'm majorly bummed. Ok, I'm definitely as least minorly bummed. Yeah. Wait...what? What am I saying? I feel fine, I'm about to pick up my skunky dro, listen to MMJ and eat like REALLY good leftover tortellini. So what the shit?...damnit, what am I going to say that sounds convincing that I am worried that she may die? That is something I'm supposed to convey for sure. But I'm not worried at all. Sure, it has the potential to be scary and more than a little uncomfortable and painful, but I have no doubt that she will be fine and resplendent as ever for a very long time." So I said, "Shit." I said it as somberly as possible because I am a terrible liar.

Now before you associate me with self-absorbed crasshole, let me state my feelings about it all: Gm held me the day I was born. She has been an irreplaceable part of my life for twenty-one years. She is my third parent and the thought of her having to endure even one moment of discomfort, physically obtrusive or otherwise, quite literally makes me ill. So, for that aspect of it, yes, that is why cancer can be deemed terrible sight unseen. But the notion that she won't be around to be MY children's Gm is like telling me that George W. Bush is actually Jesus H. Christ, it's laughable and ridiculous.

So, anyway, that little inner monologue (which, by the way, was all happening while I was on the phone with Moms) made me realize that maybe the connotation I glean from the word 'cancer' doesn't make me as emotionally void as I originally assumed it must. I never associated cancer with death because it does seem like a silent killer, if that makes one damn lick of sense. There is no gruesome outward manifestation that comes with cancer and I'm a very visual person. There are associable aspects that come with some forms of treatment (ie hair and weight loss, anemia, so forth and so on) that hint at the war being waged just inside the revolving door, but I don't jump to those from the word 'cancer' itself. And because it is treatable, albeit not always (and by not always I mean nowhere NEAR enough) successfully, I certainly don't jump to imminent death. So I guess that is why I get a little befuddled when people do automatically sprint right to that association. And that's really all I have been trying to wonder about for the last nth number of paragraphs.

On a lighter note, because I am a goofy asshole by nature, I offered Gm the only thing I had to offer that turned out to be exactly right for the occasion: any or all of my cumbersomely over-sized breasts. If you don't know me, you think I am being sarcastic. And as Beatrix Kiddo would say: any other time you'd be 100% right, but this time...you're 100% wrong. Huge knockers are a huge pain in the ass. And neck. And shoulders. And back. However, I would never change my body without a DAMN good reason and this would be exactly that. As I told Gm in her Get Well note, I have enough ta-tas to endow a small Inuit village and they are hers should she ever desire them. Notice I didn't use the term 'eskimo'. Did you notice? Where did that word come from anyway? There's no way that that is the accepted nomenclature...right?

Ok, so that was my little tete-a-tete with that bastard cancer and its underhanded societal attack. That fuck. He ain't gonna get my lady.

Thanks for your ear, you'll be receiving it back shortly,
Trippy Miss