Ace

is the place fr

Italy was incredible, gorgeous, delicious, wild, silly etc, perfection. Call me a river in Egypt, because I was in full denial of my real life shit. Except for two different dinners where the 2nd red wine reminded me I’m prob inching towards a hysterectomy. I also remembered when our Uffizi tour guide pointed out the pregnant woman in Bottecelli’s Primavera.

I had always dreamt of being pregnant. The drama of labor. The throwing up with morning sickness. The MAKING A HUMAN inside your fucking body element?!??!?! It’s the most hardcore thing a human body can do. Period. Would I shit on the table? What would my doula be like? How big will my tiddies get? Will the skin between my vag and asshole tear?

I would SCREAM. I would nap all the time and eat so much omg. I would have cravings and Rob would have to get me ridiculous foods because I’d be busy GROWING A LEG. I bought two different MILF tops in real life for my future photo shoot. I wanted to do a pregnant, cigarette off my mouth, shotgun in my hand, on the lake, Florida expecting photo series. Maybe that’s how I would announce it. Imagine me shutting up about a life secret thing for MONTHS? Could I have done it?

No.

I would yell at Rob, “YOU DID THIS TO ME!” He would present me with a push present. I would take a surprisingly glamorous post labor selfie. I would look into my goopy newborn’s eyes and know I was a real life goddess. A giver of LIFE?

Since hearing “potential endometrial cancer,” October 13th, I’ve been forced to face the potential of never carrying a pregnancy. Rob is busy with my embryos saving my life, and that pregnancy could have killed me etc, but I have had to grieve this loss.

And now I’m back in America, and all I had on the calendar today was to get my permanent cartilage earring hoops out before tomorrow’s MRI. Which was a rough reminder of…all of it. The hospital told me I needed to take off (out) all jewelry before this MRI. I was already in a bad mood, because I have cancer, so I was like, “well can someone there cut my earrings off, because they’re permanent.” They said no. I was annoyed, but Rob overheard this go down and was like, this is not the hospital’s problem? And I was like, ok well great, let’s put those tax dollars to work. I’ll go to the fire dept.

As someone desperate for gratitude and silver linings during this shitfest, I created an entire fantasy for today. I was going to go to the fire department, and have hot firemen fawn over me while cutting my earrings off.

The first station I hit up was empty. I rang a doorbell (????), like a fucking loser, and two men out back told me the trucks left about 10 minutes ago.

My ears are not an emergency. Fires are. I drove to the next closest station. I watched fire trucks drive away with their lights on. Ok I get it. There is an all hands on deck situation.

Fine. What would they have used? Some sort of tool. Something a civilian could get at a hardware store.

I typed Ace Hardware into maps. I get sentimental. These two permanent upper right cartilage hoops have been with me for at least a decade. If you’re a hottie, you know, cartilage piercings SUCK. I got these done at a sketchy place on Melrose. Omg I found the content. October 23, 2014. They got so infected I had to get them injected at the dermatologist, and then get them re-pierced at the overpriced and slightly scary Body Electric, also on Melrose. Body Electric has successfully sold me the most expensive body jewelry of my life. I spent like, what? $400 on new, x amount of carat hoops. Permanent hoops. Eternity loops with no beginning nor end. And I said, “yeah ok good! I will die with these two solid gold hoops hugging my upper ear.”

I pushed one solid tear out (60mg Prozac is no joke) and threw the car into park at Ace. I had been there to have our house keys made, and they have an extensive Yeti selection, so it wasn’t my first Rodeo. I asked the counter woman if they could please find me a tool to cut these earrings off. She suggested a “dyke” and had me meet Jon in aisle 19. Jon was hot, which I appreciated, esp considering the whole no firefighter thing. We chatted about the situation. I did not use the word cancer, bc I am full of mystery. Homeboy picked up a ~dyke~, still attached to its paper packaging via zip tie, and quite literally cut both of my earrings off with one snip. I thanked him profusely, and was grateful not to have to make a purchase. As I left, I wondered who would one day buy the tool that helped prepare me for an MRI.

So yeah, that’s what I did today, and that’s how dramatic I was about my 2014 earrings being cut off at Ace Hardware.

Xox,

Ariana