Me and Ms. Gonick

Recently I started reading Ms. Gonick’s columns in the Chronicle and I was gobsmacked by how much her writing style reminds me of my own.  She might not appreciate this comment very much since she’s a professional writer and I’m just a blogging hack but this is my blog, not her column, so my opinion is the only one that counts.  It’s really uncanny to read musings in her column that could have come straight from my head—so uncanny, in fact, that I started wondering if perhaps I was Ms. Gonick.
You see, like me, Ms. Gonick is wracked by medical problems which she often writes about.  She always mentions her brain tumor, it’s actually in her byline-- Our dear Ms Gonick, half deaf and unbalanced from a benign yet radiated brain tumor. 
That’s what got me thinking.  If I was Ms. Gonick and had a brain tumor it might have caused some cerebral splitting of my psyche into me and Ms. Gonick ..and god only knows how many other crazy people.   Stranger things have happened, and often do, to both of us. 
But this Sunday I was reading about how she used to have a head like Gumby until she had plastic surgery and that blew my theory right out of the water.  Pictures don’t lie and all my pictures from the past are of a face with enviable bone structure, the kind of bone structure that hair stylist always comment on.  The kind of bone structure that made     Ms. Gonick hate girls like me and her friend, blonde Patty.
So, I must deal with the fact that while it is not possible that I am Ms. Gonick, it is quite possible, and quite likely, that Ms. Gonick would hate me ..even though I am no longer blonde like Patty.   Damn!  I didn’t really want to have a brain tumor, but I did like the idea of having my own newspaper column.

Comments

[mike]

I ask this with nothing but love: have you been out of the house lately?

:)

[AdventureGirl]

I've been very bored lately, as you might have guessed. I thought a zany little entry might perk me up but it didn't ..it only made people question my sanity. :-O

[allison]

Okay, I have read about 8 of her pieces (starting at the beginning, of course), and you are completely mistaken.

She is me.

No really. Listen.

I attended SFSU. I returned to school in 2001 to get a teaching credential. I have lost some hearing in my right ear and have undoubtably got a brain tumor. And I love Sondheim.

However, I never looked like Gumby. Perhaps I am you.