For the last few weeks, I’ve woken up overnight with Nancy Sinatra’s “Let Me Kiss You” in my head. Her cover of Morrissey’s original was in my iTunes library for a long time — I’d purchased the self-titled album containing the track in 2004 — but I couldn’t find the MP3 on my tablet, and the CD was sold to a secondhand store many moons ago. Apple Music didn’t have the album, so I searched Spotify next. No luck there, either.
With that I turned to YouTube and found a fan video made from clips of Jean Cocteau’s Beauty and the Beast, one of the most beautiful films ever made. I’m a sucker for most retellings of that story, which usually brings me to tears. The animated Disney version from 1991 was a smash, especially among girls my age, most of whom saw themselves as Belle. My family assumed I identified as the bookish heroine, but between Prednisone and the surgeries I had the next year, I felt more like the Beast — cursed to exist in a body that didn’t reflect who I was, and subjected to the unwanted judgments of people who didn’t understand.
That probably sounds melodramatic, but it was tough to be a kid whose appearance and general existence were at the mercy of a disease that even adults couldn’t control. Surgery was (temporarily) worse for various reasons, one being its permanent scars. Now I’ve had them long enough that I don’t give it much thought; they’ve faded and shrunk a bit and look much different than in those first few years, when they were tender and new and brightly colored and the disfigurement of my abdomen was still shocking to me.
In middle and high school gym classes, I changed shirts in a bathroom stall if the teacher allowed it, or wore a cami to avoid locker room stares. Classmates who knew about the surgeries were curious about the scars; there was a mystery about those things then, before the Internet was kept in our pockets and could graphically answer invasive questions within nanoseconds. As an adult, I still attract that sort of morbid interest in medical settings, where non-GIs tend to wince at the sight of my stomach and ask technical questions.
The polite ones quickly correct their expressions to something neutral, but initially it’s always “Gah!” or “Ouch!” I’d like to tell them it doesn’t hurt, but that would be a lie: it hurt like hell at first. Like many j-pouchers, I still have adhesions that are obnoxiously painful at times, which is a different sort of pain than what’s caused by IBD itself. Having studied the reactions of many doctors over the years, I wasn’t sure how Crankenstein would respond the first time she touched my stomach or took off my shirt. None of it threw her, which surprised me — I expected some degree of academic curiosity would reveal itself postcoitally.
Later in our relationship, I said I’d been impressed when she didn’t blanch at the sight of my old-school scars or pepper me with questions about it. (These days, some colectomy patients are eligible for laparoscopic procedures; in the early ’90s, it was open surgery and somewhat primitive.*) She laughed and admitted to conducting research beforehand so she would be prepared. I thought that was kind of funny since I’d watched an old HBO documentary about eating disorders once I knew she had one. It was called Thin and made me very nervous.**
… Moving on to a few odds and ends, here’s some TV and tennis talk and a couple clarifications:
- After finishing season three of My Life is Murder, which we originally watched because of Crankenstein’s childhood crush on Lucy Lawless, we decided to investigate Harry Wild, another cozy mystery, in the final weeks of an Acorn trial subscription. It features another of her childhood crushes: Dr. Quinn herself, Jane Seymour. (Or, as Papa would’ve shouted, “Joyce Frankenberg!”, her more ethnically Jewish birth name.) Now that Seymour’s in her seventies, she must be all the more attractive to Crankenstein. Harry is darker than Murder so far, and its supporting characters less endearing, but it’s a fun role for Seymour.
- Other than Nadal’s long-awaited return in Brisbane, there wasn’t much exciting Australian Open warm-up action this year. But we should talk about Iga Świątek’s performance at the United Cup in a mixed-doubles match with Hubert Hurkacz against Germany this weekend. Whether ripping a cross-court forehand winner against Alexander Zvrerev or returning his serve, she played wonderfully against him — even though Poland lost. Why was it impressive? His serve stymies ATP players, for one thing. But it was also nice to see a woman pummel the ball against an alleged domestic abuser.
- I neglected to clarify yesterday that whether or not Crankenstein wears her ring on a day-to-day basis isn’t a sentimental issue to me. It was, however, a sentimental issue to her, so my beef is with ‘Niles’ dictating what she can and can’t wear. That’s obviously still happening despite her protestations.^ Being told “No, no, this isn’t a problem at all!” about big honkin’ problems is one of my biggest marital annoyances.
- Finally, it’s been brought to my attention that Wikipedia presents several theories about “Band of Gold,” a song I mentioned yesterday. My source was Lamont Dozier’s How Sweet It Is: A Songwriter’s Reflections on Music, Motown and the Mystery of the Muse, in which he stated that the husband was gay and the writers knew the subject was taboo, so they deliberately “[created] a little mystique” about it.
* A minor laparoscopic surgery added new scars to my stomach’s crowded canvas a few years ago. I rarely notice those tiny punctures; they’re like paper cuts compared to the older stuff.
** Once I learned more about eating disorders via my wife, I looked at some of the beliefs and behaviors of my ex and her sister in a new light. However, I’d previously only known one person, a former classmate, with an eating disorder comparable in severity to Crankenstein’s. For the record, Crankenstein’s weight was healthy when we met. Had I seen any signs she was actively engaging in what we jokingly call ‘hood rat behavior’ — i.e., starvation or purging — I wouldn’t have dated her. (Spoiler alert: She was actively engaging in ‘hood rat behavior.’) When you’re in the throes of ED, you’re not really fit for a relationship.
^ It’s probably strange to read references to ‘Niles’ (I refuse to pretend he’s a real person, so his name belongs in quotes), but we were told by Crankenstein’s exposure therapist to treat the problem like its own entity. That way the blame is placed where it belongs — on the anxiety and OCD — and not the person suffering from it.