Katie, Katie, Deformed Lady

If you know my husband at all, you probably know that he is very blunt. He will call a spade a spade. He will also call a fat spade a fat spade. He has no concern for certain cultural expectations, especially in the US, that make comments on another person's body shape, size or other attributes taboo. For the first four years of our marriage, I would get really offended when he would comment on the largeness of my belly roll. I tried very hard to explain to him that it "hurt my feelings" (a concept that does not translate well) when he said that. In his point of view, he was telling the truth, so why should he sugar coat it? In my opinion, why does it need to be brought up at all?

I finally got some enlightenment on this issue while in Bangladesh. My nieces were commenting on my "fatty" nature, and I said I felt sad when they called me fatty. They asked why it made me sad. I said, "Well, wouldn't you feel sad if someone said you were ugly?" and they said, "Yes, but calling you fat has nothing to do with how pretty or ugly you are." We then had a conversation about how a person is always pretty or ugly no matter how skinny or fat they get. They even said that fat people are more attractive, nice and soft and round. Ahhh, this is a concept I could latch on to!

Anyways, back to the original point of my post...
Masud has always called me "deformed". He has several points.

1) When I was young, I had a tumor the size of a golf ball on my index finger. It was gross. I had it removed in a painful surgery involving replacing missing bone in my finger with bone marrow from my pelvis when I was eleven. Yowch.
2) In the pictures of me as a young girl, the first thing a viewer will notice is my HUGE front teeth, protruding from my face like a lighthouse beacon. Thanks Gramma for paying for my braces.
3) Speaking of teeth, I have these hereditary white calcium deposits on them, which makes it look like my teeth are really yellow in comparison. The only way to get rid of them is to get expensive veneers, so I choose to say that they give my smile "personality".
4) My fingernails and toenails are tiny, oddly shaped, and paper thin. They never grow past my fingertips without tearing in an excruciating accidental brush with anything harder than a marshmallow.
5) My ears stick out. This is combined with the unfortunate physical reaction I have to nervousness, tiredness, and alcohol - they turn purple.
6) I have this "swirl" of hair at the base of my neck, so that when my hair is cut short, my hairline looks like a mullet gone awry.
7) And speaking of hair, I have more body hair than Masud does. Ahem.
8) I have these gross lumps all over my body. My mom and brother have them, too. Some of them are just "fatty cysts", but I have some special ones called "ganglion" cysts on my wrist (see picture). They have roots, and one of them is rooted in my wrist joint, causing considerable pain. The other one is wound around an artery, causing occasional numbness.

Soooo, this Friday I am going to have them whacked off in an outpatient procedure. I'll be sleeping as much as possible, and waiting very, very long before I get the bandages removed, so there will be no dish washing for me. Yay, ganglion cysts!

I guess a little deformity pays off now and then. (Feminist side note: It's really shitty that in order to get a vaycay from doing dishes I have to undergo surgery.)