Can't spell follicles without folly

I awake in room 774 Feldberg to no ordinary bed head.  The RN assures me this is just Hospital Head, but my hair now looks like this every morning, strangely upright after a lifetime of fine, dry, supine passivity. 


Could be the steroids they give alongside the chemo. Could be the chemo itself starting to get to the hair (which can be tugged out about ten hairs at a time).

Regardless of cause, it either makes my participation in the Friday morning videoconference for work a little less credible, or requires extra prep time with a wet facecloth mantilla to dampen my hair's enthusiasm.

Mrs Blogger played nature photographer in the patient solarium, and captured this action photo:

My hair follicles are clearly behaving as if something is terribly wrong, like a colony of meerkats standing at their holes as a big predator approaches.

"What was that?"
"I smell danger"
"I see a big cat!'
"Hey guys, what I miss?"
"A cat. A smell. A tremor"
"Hey!"

Obi Wan might say they are "like a million* voices crying out in terror," about to be suddenly silenced.

*Technically earth people have an average of only 100,000 hairs--there goes Old Ben Kenobi being overly dramatic-- but I digress.

My turgid crown could also be a school of shimmering fish moving in great, ever-changing waves, to perplex a relentless, hungry dolphin by their unpredictable movements. 

See how some arc upwards while those in the front plunge down? This is no cow lick, it is the hive mind in action!  Swoop! Zoom! Dazzle! Feint! Billow! Swish! Can't catch us all!

A few will be sacrificed for the good of the herd, but most will survive this encounter.

And look at those eye brows!

In the second grade, Chris Birmingham made a point of regularly asking if I knew I had "Spock Brows" (answer: "Yes, Chris, thanks").

As you see in the bottom-most photo, these supercilia are now super supercilia, not just surviving, they are thriving.

My brows look like some desert plant in rainy season, sending up a great flowering stalk, groaning under the weight of its blossoms.  

Soon they will go to seed, and the goldfinches will feed on the swaying tufts, before the seed pods fall, and all return to the dust. Hopefully they will be back by this time next year.