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| Appproaching 50, fully dressed with all my hair. |
Exactly what do you think is more offensive about that last sentence, the oven or my vanity? You might think it’s the oven, but trust me, my vanity will offend you again and again.
Part of my hotness is my hairiness. God taketh and God giveth. Gone from my head but bountiful on my body. God spareth me back hair though, which my straight brother Mitchell doesn’t understand or think is fair. Mitchell is two years older than me, forty pounds heavier, as bald, but is as hairy in back as in front. And his body hair is patchy, like a frequently pissed- on lawn. “ How the hell do you only have a little bit of hair on your back? Is it in the gay gene?” I told him I simply refused to let my back grow it. “Willpower. The same way that some people fight off cancer with their mind, that’s how I fought off back hair.” That’s what I would like to think but I was just follicularly luckier than him. My body hair always has gotten me attention ever since it came into bloom in my late teens. Long ago I learned people either like it or they don’t. There is no middle ground when you are as hairy as me. Some people are even disgusted by it. Repulsed, revolted. But let me tell you, when people do like it, they really like it. They can’t stop stroking it when I have my shirt off. I have become a walking petting zoo. People think it just grows wild and does what it wants. If my body hair isn’t trimmed occasionally I would start to look like I am wearing a Persian rug. Trimming it is tricky because it has to look like it hasn’t been trimmed, or else it winds up looking like short manicured gay porno star body hair. My entire body takes around an hour and a fully charged buzzer for it to be professionally coiffed. Luckily I have found a man named Anthony, the Leonardo DaVinci of manscaping, who is up for the task. I also have to do is make sure I am tan. My hairy forearms look like long dark opera gloves on my skin if I stay out of the sun for too long. Luckily I come from a long line of tanners so sunning myself is something that comes naturally. My mother tanned, and her mother before her, back in the days of baby oil and aluminum reflectors. Since high school I have had a tan. But I swear I know when enough is enough. Thank God I don’t suffer from the dreaded disease Tanorexia. Not knowing when you’re tan enough is a terrible thing. And now there’s Smilirexia, not knowing when your teeth are white enough. Having both at the same time is especially dangerous because they play off each other. That’s when Jewish housewives start looking like their black housekeepers.
As part of my master plan to be just tan enough, I have given up all outdoor sunbathing and allow myself only one 18 minute high pressure tanning booth visit every four weeks, or maybe three and a half weeks. Tanning in public is just too embarrassing now. It should be done clandestinely, out of people’s view, late at night or very early in the morning before everyone else is awake. The worst part is leaving the salon when you’re done, especially when its on a busy street. The only other time I experience the same shame is coming out of sex shops or drug paraphernalia stores. I feel safe when I’m inside amongst my fellow tanners, the only ones who I can trust to understand and not judge me.
The reason why I bring all this up is that I just got back from the dermatologist. It seems that God not only finds it necessary to make me bald, but to also give me pre-cancerous spots on the top of that bald head. They are called Actinic Keratosis, or AK’s for short, and grow into cancer 2% of the time.
“The chances are still enough to make me concerned, and hopefully to make you concerned. Having no hair makes you much more susceptible to cancer there.”
“ Oh that’s fair, “ I said, annoyed at the injustice.
He asked me how much sun I normally get. There are certain things people will over-estimate, such as how strict they are about recycling and how much they still have sex with their significant others, and there are things they will under-estimate, such as how much alcohol and drugs they have a month and how often they cheat on their significant others. I tried to play down my UV exposure, only admitting to tanning in a booth once every 2 months.
“Nothing is worse than doing that”.
“ How about using my cell phone while I’m in the booth. Then I get brain cancer too. That’s worse,” I said.
Dermatologists have no sense of humor when it comes to tanning. He was proudly pale and didn’t understand why I would even think of tanning with the writing so clearly on the wall, or in this case my bald head.
He took out small sample tubes of moisturizer with an SPF of 30. “You’ll be wanting to put this on your scalp and face in the mornings before you go out.”
“ But I work six days a week inside the hospital. I’m hardly ever outside during the day.”
“ You can get damage from the sun from just your walk to work,” he said ominously, the same way a shark expert says you can get attacked by a Great White in three feet of water.
I started to panic, envisioning a life wearing long black opera gloves. I started deal-making. As a middle child, that’s how I have gotten through life. You make me happy, I’ll make you happy.
“ I’ll put it on if I eat lunch outside but not in the morning. How’s that? And I’ll only do 14 minutes in the booth instead of 18.”
“Anytime in a tanning booth is too much time”.
“How about I wear a hat in the summer and never tan outside again?“
“ Listen. It’s all up to you, Gary. This is the only kind of cancer that we actually choose to get or not get. Let me at least take care of these for you right now before they grow into anything worse“ He left the room for a minute and came back with his liquid nitrogen canister, which looks like a blowtorch without the torch. “ This might sting a little, and the spots will get red then scab, but the marks should be totally gone in a few weeks.”
“So wait a minute, you’re telling me that all I have to do is come here and have you burn them off and they wouldn’t turn cancerous?”
“In theory, but…”
I interrupted him before he could finish. “ That’s a theory I like. Let’s go with it, “ I smiled, leaning my head towards his blowtorch. “ Freeze away.”
Suddenly the world was bright and sunny again knowing that I could continue tanning as long as I keep coming back and having the AK‘s zapped off. This will of course someday catch up with me, but at least for now I wouldn’t be going to the opera.
