Admit it — you love breasts. We all love breasts, really. It’s possible that breasts could be called an American obsession and, in fact, I would venture to say that men everywhere take great lengths to recognize the hypnotic allure of a shapely breast. Big ones, small ones, fake ones, real ones, round ones, square er, semi-round ones — it’s all good stuff. For some women, breasts could easily qualify as their most enthusiastic component, if you’re picking up what I’m putting down.
So what’s *not* to love about breasts? I’ll tell you what — that bitch breast cancer. Sure, we all love prostrates and ovaries and skin and throats and brains and lungs and all those other body parts that contract cancer too but, being a woman who doesn’t have, say, a prostrate, I worry more about breast cancer than I do about any of the other varieties. Which means you get to hear about this subject today. You’re welcome! Not to mention, breast cancer statistics1 are nothing short of grim. Consider these applicable to the U.S. in 2008 alone:
- 250,230 new cases
- a 1 in 8 incidence
- 40,480 women died from the disease. In one year. And people are pissed about the 4,3652 troops who have died in six and a half years in Afghanistan??
- the highest rate of cancer only after lung cancer
Thanksbeto the Twitter, I found out about a little project going on in Toronto called ProjectPink!. The idea, started by Darryl K
oster of BusterRhinos Southern BBQ3 in Whitby, Ontario, was this: talk about how every woman should have a dash of pink in their hair at some point in their life which then manifested into his agreement that he’d dye his hair pink if Torontonians purchased 1,500 BBQ sandwiches4 between now and December 18. Most importantly, though, 50 cents of every sandwich purchased would be donated to the Breast Cancert Society. Sweet! Some of the way cool Toronto bloggers and tweeters I follow — karmacake.ca and cakeordeath.ca5 — decided that if the number was met, they too would put pink in their hair, and so on and so forth, and, let’s just say that a little viral revolution was born. Of course, never one to be left out when it has to do with a mini-revolution, and because I have always, always, always wanted pink streaks in my hair, I jumped on the proverbial bandwagon.
You may remember those research studies they do on kids where they put deliciously yummy candies on a table and tell the poor, drooling four year-old that if they can wait five minutes without eating the candy, they get them all, but if they can’t wait the allotted time, then they’re basically headed for a life of unhappiness and destruction? 
Well, I fall into the latter category. I have gotten much better as I’ve gotten older, but my OCD6 tends to kick in when I’m excited about something and I just simply cannot. wait. Yes, I have zero patience and yes, I have negative 500 willpower. Your point?
What I’m getting at is this: my very favourite colour is pink. You could say that I am somewhat of a pink fanatic; my Twitter page is pink, my NaBloPoMo page is pink, my iPhone case is pink, I only use pink file folders at work and now, thanks to ProjectPink! my hair is now pink. No, I am not channeling my inner Avril Lavigne rocker girrl, despite the fact that I live in Ontario from whence she came. I like to think that I’m just 
taking this opportunity to promote ProjectPink! in my own little way before December 18, as well as fulfilling yet another item on my lengthy Canadian bucket list. Of course, the pink hair also most certainly qualifies under ”Things that would never have happened in Houston, Texas”.
I’ve gotten mixed reactions. I see people glancing at it like “does she have pink in her hair?” or, alternatively, probably thinking “talk about age-inappropriate!”. The cool, hip people I know are like “omg, I lurve it so much!”. The uncool, non-hip people I know7 are like “hmmm, okay”. When I tell them it’s for breast cancer, they get it, but really, they don’t. It washes out in six to eight weeks, but I honestly don’t care one iota what people think – I love it. And, every time someone asks me about it, I tell them it’s for ProjectPink. If I can do a teeny, tiny part *and* have pink hair, then I’m one happy girl!
Now that this long post has come to an end, I can say in conclusion, fuck cancer and support ProjectPink!
P.S. You may have heard that the United States Preventive Services Task Force recently suggested that women begin to wait until they’re 50 to receive a mammogram. Well, my message to USPSTF is this: you should get out of my way because if you persist with these guidelines, you can assume that I’ll promptly be donning my 4-inch heels and paying you a visit! Also, you should know that I think about you when I touch myself. ;-)
1 Source: breastcancer.org
2 As of 11/22/09 at 1:25pm EST. Source: antiwar.com
3 OMG. Southern BBQ in Canada?! Cornbread, sweet tea and baked beans? Yes, please!
4 By which I do not mean Canadian BBQ or “hamburgers”. I mean real BBQ sandwiches. You know, like brisket.
5 Does anyone else see the pattern here?
6 I don’t really have OCD, but I like to blame my impatientness on OCD rather than the fact that I just simply have a lack of willpower. 
7 You know who you are.
I finally got some new kicks this week! My other trainers were nearly falling apart, what with my four-times-a-week workouts and wearing them hiking in Colorado; and while I may or may not spend copious amounts of money on new clothes, shoes, and purses, running shoes just seems so, well, utilitarian. Getting new running shoes is kind of like getting socks and underwear at Christmas — is it really a gift or is it just a necessity Santa puts beneath the tree under the guise of a present?
