Spa hair and ladderthoughts

it doesn't look as if i'll be visiting either Finland or Veil tonight, so i might as well post.

sometimes, you have to love this job.

today's coverage was a media camp thing on multiple sclerosis, an autoimmune disease that targets the central nervous system, causing demyelinization of neuronal axons (sort of like what Lorenzo Odone got in Lorenzo's Oil, only not), that, like many other diseases, isn't getting enough attention in this part of the world.

i never paid much attention to these things when i was going through medical school, but, apparently, some knowledge did manage to filter through the white noise of my previous life, and it paid off. for the first time in my career as a journalist, i thoroughly understood the material, and even managed to ask some pretty nifty questions i'd thought up on the spot, leaving only 1 or 2 l'esprit d'escaliers (pardon my french, i don't really know any).

i always have trouble with questions. they always come when it's too late to ask them. which is why despite all the conventions i've covered, i've rarely conducted interviews.

we (i.e., mediafolk) were all treated to spa things after the business was concluded. i've never been the spa-going type of person, and even after having that experience, i still probably wouldn't spend a day at one of those places, and certainly wouldn't pay for it. my idea of R&R is coffee and a good book with Mabel or, if she isn't around, Audrey (my laptop). though there were times when i found myself cringing at the things that were being done to me, i honestly can't put the experience down.

i liked the bit where they tried to scalp us with their fingers (leaving those of us with enough hair for it to look like we'd just gotten out of bed, which, in a manner of speaking, we had), and when they tried (unsuccessfuly) to pull our heads off.

on top of which, i met some people who, while i will probably never get to know the "real" them that other people might know in their "real" lives, are all capital fellows and, er, fellowesses as i know them now, and were a real blast to be with.

you ought to know who y'all are. cheers.

of course, tomorrow it's back to the grind, and from what our editorial assistant tells me, it'll be at least twice as grindy as usual.

*

one of the people i met i actually re-met. Denise Haak was a batchmate from elementary school; her name was (well, is) rather unique around these parts, and people tend to remember her even if only for that name. i was one such person, as i remember no real interaction with her at that age, and she disappeared from the school not long after that.

before today, i found i couldn't remember what she looked like, but it all came back when i saw her. i didn't think i'd recognize her, but i did.

she didn't recognize me, though. not until i clued her in. then she seemed to remember me better than i'd remembered her.

soon enough after that, we were talking like we never did back in grade school.

she told me that back in grade school i'd looked older than my age; now i look younger. it seemed to her as though my face from that age had been transplanted onto me now, which, i realized, accounts for everything.

it occurred to me how i never felt like i was living my own life. this face is a mask.

the obvious conclusion, then, is that, if i'm finally living the life of the real me, i will soon enough be unmasked, and will finally start to age at a normal rate.

i believe i'd stated before that writing is my mask. if the above speculation does, in fact, take place, then i've had it the other way around:

writing is my face.

thanks for the insight, Denise.