Bald and Beautiful, Baby

So, I'm going bald. OK, that may be a SLIGHT exaggeration, but it is a little annoying to have some of your hair fall out. It took me a while to figure out what was happening. I have been noticing, just in the last few months, that when I style my hair, I can see a tiny bit of pink scalp right in the front, through the hair. Huh. Never noticed that before. I just rearranged it absently so it is covered. Then, I noticed that there is hair in the drain after my shower. Huh. What about that. I don't usually have to clean the drain. Well, do, de, do, just cleaning the drain, not even thinking about WHERE that hair was coming from and that I'm the ONLY ONE who takes a shower in there and that hair must be coming from MY HEAD. Until this morning. When I noticed hair in the drain both BEFORE and AFTER my shower. I cleaned it out and there was more hair there AFTER my shower. Which apparently sloughed off my head during the shower. Hair. Coming out. After one shower.

Then I got a little nervous. So, I accessed the trusty Internet and, sure enough, this is another of those lovely side effects from menopause that they don't tell you when you are blithely, happily living your life as a skinny, lovely 20 year old. Not only do I get to experience bursts of irritability, a hot flash which encompasses my entire body in, like 30 seconds, causing me to burst out into a drenching sweat and wrench off as many clothes as possible (depending on where I am located at the time, this could result in almost total nudity), lie awake sleepless wondering why in the world I can't sleep, then fall asleep only to wake up drenched in sweat and having to pee and wanting a drink of cold water, only to have the cycle repeat itself - no, now I am going bald as well.

Just when we reach the point in our lives where we are comfortable financially, happily married, able to enjoy our families and friends, getting ready to retire to travel the world - I'm going to be this hot, sweaty, irritable, bald woman. What a great companion to travel the world with. Tom is very excited.

One the plus side, as soon as I mentioned this to some other women, they told me they were going bald also. One said her husband had mentioned he could now see her scalp. If Tom says he can see my scalp, I will drive straight to a divorce lawyer. And, apparently, you don't actually go totally bald, your hair just thins to a certain degree. Sweet.

I stopped at the mall on the way home and bought three new pairs of pajamas. When I got home, I put on the hot pink pair and informed Tom that we were ordering dinner. Since I had already informed him that I was going bald and I was NOT HAPPY about it, in fact I was pretty seriously annoyed about it, he said the pajamas looked great, I should even go buy more pairs and dinner delivery sounded fine, just fine, then he beat a hasty retreat. You BETTER head on out of here. Get out of my face. You man. You better believe my pajamas look good. And dinner is going to be delivered. I may be bald. But I look good. And I don't have to cook tonight.