My (perhaps controversial) thoughts as a "newbie" to CA.

MelissaDallas--What courses did they teach? And was that any help to you with your studies? And did you ever have either of them as YOUR teacher?

MelissaDallas--

Bright girl! Guess some of that DNA transferred from mom and pop to you.

I know what you mean about not knowing HOW to study. It really is something you have to learn....as well as time management.

Before I flunked out of U of MD in 1964 my idea of time management was to manage the last twelve hours before a paper was due or before an exam, no more than that, and do so by slurping Cokes, puffing on the occasional Marlboro, and, in the wee hours and after the quarters were gone, drop a coil heater into a mug and slurp so much hot tea that I spent the last half hour before having to depart the dorm for the Hour of Reckoning running back and forth to the bathroom.

That final, flunk-out semester I'd met a gal from Paris whose parents sent her to Maryland to break up what they thought was an unhealthy romance with her Parisian boyfriend. We met at the International Club. As she was a barely-five-foot-tall artist and I a six-foot-tall aspiring artist it was a matter both of opposites attracting and birds of a feather flocking together. Sylvie and I took trips to DC and Baltimore on the bus, sat in the Student Union cafeteria creating a single painting, she taking one side of a large sheet of watercolor paper, I the other. I learned from her about black ink--dilute it and it turns beautiful shades of blue and fuchsia--and how to use a Rapid-O-Graph pen. She was the sun and I was the moon. She wore a cape and was every dramatic thought I'd ever had about France and French artists. She wrote a kid's book, illustrated by her, of course, called L'infant Lune. I thought she was a genius and she made me see my tall, skinny self as not ugly. We were so close my brother thought we were lesbians because I was "seeing her all the time." This was back in the Middle Ages when such things were verboten/shocking/icky/scary. It was a testament to how firm was our friendship that I enlightened my brother that such was not the case but wasn't offended.

When the semester ended and Sylvie returned to Paris, it was our plan for me to follow in a year. She'd left me with names of people to connect with, places I should see in France, what to pack. She'd urged me to learn a little French and apply to become a nanny in a French home once the following academic year ended. Of course I didn't give much thought to what I'd do for money.

But my friendship with her that last semester had already turned my head from things scholarly. A budding anti-conformist movement was underway. I'd bought Bob Dylan's first album and was taking it seriously. I thought college degrees were immaterial and irrelevant and started skipping classes. When I wasn't off doing something fun with Sylvie, I attended Health and Creative Writing. During my German final I was getting a suntan with the other girls behind Caroline Hall.

The tan was already fading by the time the news arrived in the mail a couple of weeks later. The hammer came down. If I wasn't going to be in college, I'd have to work. I became a teller at a local Building and Loan, riding with my father every morning because I still didn't drive. That when I rode beside him in his antique Citroen straight out of the Pink Panther and because of it felt French by association somewhat softened the reality of savings books, having every move I made being observed by my parents, and all day in a sterile, too-cold air-conditioned office opening Christmas Club accounts. But not much.

That summer I wrote to Sylvie compulsively, using the office's electric typewriter. She sent me--as did her boyfriend, Jeff (sorry Mr and Mrs Dausset), poettry-filled letters whose margins were decorated with little paintings and intricate doodlings.

I never made it to Paris.

Driver's license.

First car.

New job.

First love.

Life became all about the foreground.

Sylvie and I would write to each other for years before eventually losing touch.

I still have my copy of L'infant Lune and am right now looking at an old tin box I collaged with bits of her letters.

So I'm still seeing her all the time.

Hi gang...

I just got back from the Image Recovery Center at JHH....I thought I'd get a foam prosthesis as the silicone ones looked heavy in the TLC photos and I thought, "Will I parboil in a silicone bra when the weather cranks up into the 90's?" But the fitter, a nice gal named Stephanie, said that foam prostheses tend to ride up for the bilateral mastectomy folks.

Then she brought out two silicone boobs and put them into a sleek black bra (I've never owned a black bra...) and put it on me.

It felt so good I didn't want to take it off! She said I didn't have to. I told her I wanted little boobs and these are small and look pretty real. (It's been breezy and I knew that the nothing bra I'd been wearing if the wind plowed into me would look like I had scrunched-up tinfoil in there..not too far from the truth...in the winter with a jacket on it was no problem but now it's sunny and warm and everybody's out there with spring-type outfits.)

So I spent the rest of the day in my black bra and felt normal again.

I just took it off and placed the Amoena boobs in their individual boxes like eggs going into a nest. I kept wanting to squeeze them, like that fun Goop stuff you get at Michaels (or Gwyneth Paltrow's site, which I'd like to squeeze out of existence. I liked GP in her movies but not since. She doesn't own a microwave, using "old-fashioned" warming devices...hmmmm......come ON....GP: Do something different. Original. Interesting. Unexpected. Don't be like we've always imagined you to be like.

OK, enough of the unsolicited advice.)

As I put the boob boxes on the shelf, I looked at the information on the ends, you know, style, size etc.

$310.00

Per.

Yipes!

The one thing I don't like is that it hooks in the back. Stephanie said that if I pay like $2-3 I can get a front-opening bra. Am gonna do that. It was hard getting this bra off. I'm so spoiled with a front-opener....

JBeans--Hah-hah! No, I won't squeeze them in public, I promise you! Get yourself a pair! Medicare covers it....

Hi Molly-- Yes, I do feel good with this little bra. Glad I went.

Honda has been calling me every few weeks with this recorded message saying I have to get my driver's side airbag changed. This has been going on for over a year. But bc got in the way in the fall and I've had to just endure their calls and alarmist warnings and big ole "reminder" cards and mailings...

Then last week I heard about--and saw pictures of her car--of a young gal who was killed when her airbag blew open, metal pieces going right into her neck...

God.

The announcer said that she'd not heeded the reminder to get her airbag changed...

So I finally made the call and hied myself and car to Honda of Annapolis. This would be the THIRD time I've had airbags changed on it.....

The fellow who did my car said that, yes, her car was a Honda and her airbag a Takata.

She hadn't heeded ANY of the recall notices.

They in fact put in my car another Takata yesterday, but he said this time it had to pass muster with the specs....

Uh-huh.

How awful to go through bc and then have an airbag take me out!

Afterward my brother Skip and his girlfriend Sandi and I went to Hong Kong Buffet. Those places are fascinating! Such a variety! And all you want!

Then we decided to go to Goodwill and

I BOUGHT A RUG!

The one I have in the living room (and that now rests on brand new wall-to-wall) is so worn...I bought it at the same Goodwill almost 20 years ago. Twenty-five bucks. It's a modern oriental and is really neat but has always had a streak of fading across it--like it was rolled with that part exposed and the sun beat down on it for about ten years and then somebody beat its woof off with a hammer. I've taken to the streak with paint and brush, trying to fill it in, but that doesn't work...

Back in January my 24/7 advocate and fellow TNBC-er, came to meet me. We hugged at the door and she came inside.

Suddenly she stopped, looked down at the rug, sort of stood there, frozen, not taking a step onto it, like someone afraid to jump off a diving board.

It hit me that she thought the rug had suffered some accident.

She looked up at me wonderingly, I guess waiting for me to explain.

"Yes," I could have said. "It's a shame but all rugs when they reach 20 begin to fade in these weird streaks. It's a disease of aging. I do my best to trod lightly...".

I felt so embarrassed, and I think so did she. She said nothing and I said nothing but it hit me square in the face that the fading-in-streaks rug DOES--to someone seeing it for the first time--look like something terrible has happened or is still happening to it, as though it's going through some strange rug illness....

Then she snapped out of her daze--maybe realizing that it was very awkward for me and she was here to make me feel BETTER, not depressed over a worn rug...

The idea was put in the back of my head--wonder if I could find another nice but cheap oriental?

Then Life intervened.

"Uh-huh," it said. "Good luck with that..."

"Right," Reality added. "Life and I would really like to make it happen for you, but, um, afraid we can't do that. But all the best!"

"Snap your fingers and one will appear!" whispered someone to me in a dream....

I looked up new rugs online.

Not too expensive...

But the colors.

Its the colors, isn't it?

How can you buy a rug online without seeing it first?

But when I entered that big Goodwill yesterday I was focused on perhaps finding a good book, or a soup bowl to replace the old one that gave out on me. Not on a rug.

Then I saw this rug, part of it rolled back. It looked interesting....

I went up to it and pulled back more.

Newish oriental. Dark reds, charcoal.

And THICK.

It looked like it needed a massive cleaning. My brother had some rug cleaner in his car--handy fellow--and sprayed this on and rubbed a corner. The red, happily, enlivened.

Mowhawk. Very heavy, very thick. No fading, no staining. Good fringe. No worn spots.

No streaks.

An adolescent.

A woman walked by, saw what we were discussing, and said

BUY IT!

How much? I wondered.

Skip pulled back more and here it was:

$200.

8' x 11.'

Would it even FIT in my living room?

I went up to the manager and said I'd offer $100. after much mulling and discussing it with Skip and Sandi.

Skip had said that if it didn't fit in my apartment he'd buy it from me.

The manager said $150.

OK.

I went up to the front desk, told the clerk about the $150.

She charged me $120.

Discount for seniors day!

Hurrah!

It's now in my car, rolled up. I'll need help getting it out and up here.

It will really fill my living room. I don't know how that will be...

Will it bring on rug claustrophobia?

But it's so substantial. And I love its oriental design...

Safeway rents out carpet cleaning machines.

Have any of you used one of these to clean a carpet?

I'm excited! I want to go get it!

NOW!

Why can't I be strong and get it myself?

A new rug!

I told Panty about it.

She's ready.

But then she's always ready.

Hi DisneyGirl--

Yes, every photo I've seen of accidents involving this Takata airbag have been horrid.

Do check your Goodwill. Annapolis has several and it's amazing how many really nice things end up there.

Never, never, never did I think that I'd be finding a new rug.

It was summer 1997 and we were getting my parents' home--family home--ready to put on the market as the five of us all live established separate lives and none could afford to buy out the others for the house and ten acres. I was getting out things that we'd decided to donate and taking them, box by box, to the Goodwill.

We wanted to showcase the house's nice old wood floors. I took up the braided rugs mom had there. That day I was hauling donations I decided to stroll around and browse (always can use new stuff). Then I saw two rugs--a red-hued oriental and the one I now have, brownish tones. For under $100 they were mine!

At home I got down on my hands and knees with a can of paste wax and pretended I was Martha Stewart and began polishing, corner to corner. The red-hued oriental went under the dining room table, the brownish in the living room. Of course its streak wasn't so noticeable then. Never, as I say, did I think I'd find another in exactly the same location this time around, lo these many years later...

But the Goodwill is fun to visit. To me more fun than the Mall. Mainly because it's actually possible to walk out with something without that guilty lump in the throat, that second-guessing...

("I paid $50.00 for a bottle of TOILET WATER???")

Thanks, JBeans.....

The "new" rug waits in the car, while other things beckon,like making clear plastic boxes to hold my block toy--the tumbling blocks device using eight of the painted blocks. In order to sell them and get a nice price I realized that I'd have to "professionalize" the packaging, something I'd not thought about.

Now I know why museum gift shop items are so blasted expensive.

It's not the article.

It's the packaging.

Now I understand why many artists and creative souls seek mental health therapy and have their hands out for the latest anti-depressant as soon as it gets itself invented.

It's not writer's block.

Or indifferent gallery owners.

Or the "craziness" of the art market,

Or the lack of inspiration.

It's the packaging.

The plastic box and container companies I contacted don't make the size I need ( I want the blocks to fit snugly. The 3" box I got is too roomy.). But to get a custom-made box, depending on the company, I'd have to order between 2,000 and 5,000. And they cost a lot and take weeks and weeks. (2,000 boxes would be great if if I were selling candy and had every nostalgic and otherwise candy store in every mall and outlet in America lined up with orders. But I need about 50.)

OK, so as of now I have the plastic sheets and have made a template of the box I need. I've put two together and fastened them with tape and the blocks fit inside nicely. Time to give a big "Yay!" (You'll understand why if you're ever folded 12 mil plastic sheets, which are thick and stiffish and one wrong fold is forever--no undoing it. Every time I bent the plastic I said a little prayer.)

Onto the gluing.

I thought I was well prepared, had bought a hot glue gun and glue sticks and had on hand a bottle of Weldbond. I also bought some Super Glue Gel.

Ready to start.

It felt logical to me that plastic-to-plastic gluing would be, well, a snap. Plastic seems so, well, compatible with the thick, clear, gooey stuff we use to attach things to each other--almost like a form of plastic itself. I thought the glues were just a stronger/slightly different chemical composition from the plastic in the items (in my case PVC and PET), plus another ingredient or two.

I was wrong.

I was dreaming.

"Plastics," it seems, is a category of science and life unto itself, like corals, larger apes, cannibalizing galaxies, and acne. Plastics have a family tree the size of Kansas. The chemical compounds that make them up are so diverse the chemicals themselves are in a constant state of confusion, suffer from personality disorders and extreme bouts of ADD, are known for destructive habits and toxic relationships. If they were human they'd fill the waiting room chairs of psychiatrists and psychologists worldwide.

Today, after much googling, I entered an Alice-Through-The-Looking-Glass world, the world of

Gluing Of One Piece Of Plastic To Another.

One little 1 and 1/2" strip of glue, dribbled onto a meager 1/2" strip of plastic, needs a degreed chemical engineer to figure out how to make it stick permanently to another piece of the same plastic.

I swear.

They can make it--

but they can't make it marry the one momma wants it to marry: its own kind.

It turns out that what I thought would be an easy glue--one plastic to another--is one of the hardest tricks in the world of plastics.

The two don't want to bond, don't like to idea of being connected in any way.

They reject the glues we try.

They don't stick.

They don't hold.

They eat away, dissolve the plastic they are there to join.

They bloom.

They blister.

This has proved a veritable boon to psychiatry. A whole subset of mental illness has arisen since the second World War related to the ubiquitous, sometimes insalubrious plastics industry. And I, for one, feel something coming on...

As a kid, little did I suspect as I chewed on the plastic label that had been attached to the rear pocket of my Roy Rogers dungarees that today I'd be scrolling through page after page after page of googled hits regarding "plastic gluing."

Finally I found something. The

Locktite Plastic Bonding System.

It takes a "system" to bond plastic to itself.

Has Locktite solved the problem of PVC to PVC?

I called them.

"Um," the Locktite gal said. "There's a slight chance--'

Pause.

It had that drama of the call telling me it was cancer and not something else.

"A chance of what?" I asked.

"That it may dry hazy."

"But on your site you say it dries clear."

"Well, it usually does. But sometimes, depending on the weather, it dries cloudy. But it'll probably be OK."

I hung up, thinking golly, not only humans are affected by the weather! Plastics and plastic glues are sensitive! They won't do what they're advertised to do if it's a bad weather day!

Suddenly it all made sense:

Plastics are really a subset of

the human species!

A teeny-tiny twig at the tip of one of the branches of our family tree.

No wonder they're reluctant to bond...

"We're old enough now that we don't have to share a room!" they shriek. "And we don't want to vacation together this summer! Daddy's grumpy when he's wet. And he dries his bathing suit right out in public, with that net thing for his crotch stuff hanging inside-out. Elizabeth snores and when she's awake won't talk to me. If my arm brushes hers in the car she jerks away like something stung her. Randy's boogie board takes up the whole back of the car. Olive left my iPod earbuds at the caramel corn stand last year. Said she put them down to clean her sticky fingers. Which i don't believe."

So it seems I was wrong to think that gluing plastic to itself would be as easy as the blending of Easter Egg dye and water.

It's taken thousands of hours of experimentation, of drippy glop all over the floor and ruined clothing and smells emanating from labs that would not only clear the sinuses but burn the lining right out of them to come up with things like the

Locktite Plastic Bonding System.

Is the Locktite Plastic Bonding System the Dr Phil of the plastics world, helping the glue and the plastic sheet come together at last? Make them realize they have many things in common (and maybe a chemical element or two to act as a catalyst to activate the connection), enough things to produce a lasting union without any cracking, weakening, blistering, or blooming?

My boxes and I can only hope...

Hi gals!

ChiSandy, nice to hear that I'm not the only one who's been caught up in a technology web. I feel for you and what you and your nails have had to go through. I mean, my boxes are not CONNECTED TO MY BODY. I can put them and all the various glues I've collected in the other room and get away from them, but your nails are with you 24/7 in a very intimate and immediate way. You're seeing what I've been seeing regarding the complexities of plastics.

DisneyGirl16, laughter keeps me going. I share these tales with the thought that humor can be healing. Sometimes I laugh so hard I wonder if I'm gonna hurt my torso, etc I need to run it past a medical person. One day it came to me that maybe body-shaking laugher massages the heart--and may be good for it.

Well, after much internet research I went out yesterday to Home Depot and bought some JB Weld ClearWeld. This stuff SAYS it bonds PVC plastics but I have yet to try it. It's composed of two plungers and two tubes and involves the even dispensing and mixing of two things, then applying. It supposedly bonds in 5 minutes. Since you have to be so careful AND so fast, I need to have my whole wits about me before I take it on...

When I returned, I bumped into a maintenance fellow who works here and he sweetly carried my new rug up to my apartment. I rolled it out and it fits pretty well. I vacuumed it twice. It looks great! Not a spot, not a stain, no wear...don't believe it! The next thing will be to shampoo it. Miss Panty is running along it--back and forth. And using it as a scratching board....

JBeans, I hadn't thought of 3D printing...hmmm...have a feeling it would be pricey...but will do some research on that..thanks for the idea!

HI ladies--I just received my Knitted Knockers and they are great! I slipped them into my little walmart bra and they were huge so I pulled out some of the polyfill and now they're perfect! I recommend them to everybody! What a great idea and run by such wonderful people. Life is good!

HI JBeans--- Yes! Boxes and knockers! What a day! The knockers are a light mocha. They're so nice and soft, just what I had in mind when I imagined new "breasts."

Don't get me wrong--I do really like the silicone ones, but the Knockers are perfect as something to throw on quickly. (When I found out there was a package for me downstairs I didn't feel like sticking the silicone forms in the bra and putting it on just to run downstairs so did what I've been doing now that warm weather means we can dispense with concealing jackets: grabbed a three-ring binder and held it to my chest before heading downstairs. People tell me that I shouldn't worry about this but I feel awkward with NOTHING under my thin t-shirt.)

The silicone prosthesis forms are SUPPOSED to be put back into their cradling holders when you take the bra off, but, boy, that's a lot to do each time you put on a bra. The other day after I got home I did the equivalent of "I say it's spinach and I say to hell with it" and after I took it off hung the bra+forms on a hangar for awhile, then just folded the bra+ and put the whole thing in the cradling box without taking out the prosthesis. The makers would probably frown at this. But if I'd just played a few sets of tennis with Serena Williams and came in and stuck the saturated thing in the box, well, that would be different. But the last time I looked I wasn't an Olympic athlete. Still, the silicone forms really do create the look and feel of having a real bust....

What I REALLY needed was something more casual--more easy on/easy off--and these Knitted Knockers I can tell are gonna be perfect! Come on, summer!

They are, DisneyGirl, they are!

(Is there an echo in here?)