song of the day: Green Man / XTC
word of the day: Sciomancy / Diviniation by means of shadows; divination by communication with the ghosts of the dead.

i just found out i have a weird disease.

this is a true story, so get ready to freak out.

a few months ago, i was standing in front of the mirror in my bathroom about to shave, and i noticed something very odd. very disturbing. the odd disturbance was on my FACE. now, for starters, of all the places peculiar abnormalities can appear on the human body, the face has to be one of the most disconcerting. the penis is up there, but the face is really quite a shocker. probably #1. so, when i observed a perfect oval circle on my chin where no facial hair was left, i found it alarming. it wasn't so much that i had suddenly lost a huge section of hair on my body, it was more that it was literally in a perfect oval shape, as though someone had taken a laser-like device to remove all the hair in that part of my face and leave a surgically precise border on the area. it was stunning, i mean really, as scraggly and roughly hewn as a man's facial hair can be, this was just the opposite. somehow, literally OVERNIGHT, i had lost all the hair on my face in one spot, in a perfect oval circle, with surgically precise borders. this was not something that would have gone unnoticed for a minute, even ONE look in the mirror would have arrested me with great pause, cuz IT'S MY FUCKING FACE i'm talking about here, and this looks very WEIRD.

so, i call my wife in the bathroom. "hey, check this out." i show her. she's immediately has a look on her face, like "what the fuck is up with that?" we are both confounded. there's no way this went unnoticed, and as much as i rack my brain, i cannot possibly come up with an explanation. did i, like inadvertantly push my face against some perfectly oval, radioactive device? did i have some accident i forgot about, or didn't notice? there's simply NO WAY. the skin beneath the affected area, where the beard is gone, is baby-soft, almost softer than it's ever been in memory. there's no rash, no burn, no scar, no sign or indication of any sort that something troubling or traumatic has occured, other than the fucking hair is completely, uniformly GONE in a perfect, surgical oval.

well, ok. that's pretty fucked up, we both agree. but what are you gonna do? what's really funny, is i know we're both thinking the same thing: ALIENS. we laugh about it. i've had an alien thread running through my life in various ways for a long, long time, mostly because i know several abductees, and John Mack was a personal friend of mine. but anyway, there's no known explanation for this strange change on my face. we chalk it up to "bizarre" and move on. it doesn't really matter, cuz i shave my face anyway, so you can't really tell unless / until i try to let my beard grow in, then it's very, very apparent and impossible to miss.

fast forward another month or so. ANOTHER oval, exactly the same as the first one, appears on the OTHER side of my face. again, overnight. again, a perfect surgical border. same as the other in every way.

now, things are getting weird. i show this one to my wife, and we're both like "what the fuck is going on here?" my wife is like "you have to see a doctor." i'm like "why? they're just going to say 'that's very strange.' and then charge me $500. we start to make jokes about it. i say i wouldn't mind if ALL my hair fell out, then i could stop shaving, which is a pain in the butt anyhow. my wife gets a bit more concerned though.

fast forward another month.

NOW, it gets cool. a HUGE one appears on my head. it's BIG. it's like four inches by three inches. again, it happens OVERNIGHT. again, it is a surgical, precise border. again, no explanation, no clues, nothing remotely resembling a HINT as to what the fuck? i mean, what the FUCK? my wife now becomes adamant; "Stuart, you are going to the doctor." i have to admit, this certainly merits a medical opinion.

so, yesterday, i go to the dermatologist. i am happy to discover when my doctor walks in, she looks EXACTLY like Ally Sheedy. this inexplicably sets me at ease, and seems a fitting detail to go with my freakish affliction. i say she must get told she looks like ally sheedy all the time, she says actually, she gets mistaken for her quite often.

so, i start to tell her what's up with my body, i think i'm going to shock her, i'm a few minutes into it,

"and it appears OVERNIGHT."

she's like: "Yep", totally not shocked at all, but like she already knows everything i'm going to say.

"and they're like, surgically precise borders!"

"yep."

"and there's no rash, no blister, no redness, NOTHING but sudden disappearance of my hair in perfect ovals and circles."

"yep."

"and... it's so WEIRD."

"yep."

"it's like...CROP CIRCLES IN MY HEAD!!"

she laughs. then she's like "well, actually you have a rare, strange disease, it's called Alopecia Areata. and it's exactly what you describe, the hair suddenly, inexplicably falls out in smooth, round circles or ovals. it can affect people of any age or sex. no one knows what causes it, but it's thought to be associated with an autoimmune disorder of some type. people affected by this disease are generally in excellent health. you appear to be in perfect condition in every other sense."

"doctor, would you say i'm the healthiest person you've ever examined."

"uh...no. i mean, you're in excellent condition."

"but not the BEST you've ever seen?"

"anyway, in some cases of this illness, the hair does regrow by itself, sometimes coming back as pure, white hair in the affected area, and then sometimes coming back again darker, in a normal color. i am going to run blood tests on you to check your white cell count, red cell count, and your thyroid, but the odds are 99% that your blood work will come back totally normal, and we will have no idea why you are afflicted with Alopecia Areata."

"say it again."

"Alopecia Areata."

"oh my god."

"what?"

"i'm a FREAK."

"no, you're not. well, not for this reason, anyway."

"ha ha ha ha ha!"

"ha ha ha ha ha!"

"oh, the healing properties of laughter!"

"indeed"

"anyway, you are perfectly healthy otherwise. this is not something i'm going to be able to tell you much about. it's a mysterious thing. this condition can be associated with excessive stress or trauma, such as the death of a loved one, severe emotional upheaval, or..."

"or sudden, total spiritual Enlightenment?"

"mmm... not that i've heard of."

"so this wouldn't be the result of a radical realization of Buddha Nature?"

"don't think so."

"or, like getting so close to God that my head starts to melt?"

"you're funny."

"funny looking!"

"ha ha ha ha ha!

"ha ha ha ha ha!"

"oh, the curative force of humor."

"indeed."

"SO... the bottom line is, if your blood comes back normal, which i expect, then there's not much else i can tell you. you should be happy that you shave your head, cuz this won't be a noticable difference in your look."

"hey, i wouldn't mind if ALL my hair fell out, i just wondered why it was happening."

"yeah."

"i'd be happy not to have to shave every day. i'd be happy if my leg hair would fall out too!"

"ha ha ha ha ha!

"ha ha ha ha ha!"

"and i'd be happy if my pubic hair would fall out too!"

"haaa... *ahem* OK... well, that concludes our examination. i'll send you down to the lab now..."

well, today the results came back, and all my blood work was normal. in fact, the TONE in the nurse's voice seemed to say

"dude, your blood is fucking AWESOME. i don't know why you have crop circles in your head. that's bullshit, man."

but i don't need a doctor to tell me anything. i know what Alopecia Areata REALLY is. it's the curse of the CHOSEN. it's Angel-Branding. mark of the Mystery. chosen for what? to create the FUTURE. to inherit the PLANET. our task? control chaos, disrupt order. our method? deep breathing, bare awareness. get used to it, friends. a thousand years from now, it's gonna be simple: if you ain't bald, you're simian.