New Blog

Thought I'd update with info on a new blog that I'm a part of. My Tuesday Night community has decided to start a community blog. For news on what's going on with each of us, check out Tuesday Night Musings.

Ta ta for now, but I'll be back soon.

Breaking Up Is Hard To Do

Well, guys, I've been broken up with.

Don't be too alarmed. D hasn't gotten too sick of me, and so he's going to keep me around. Or at least let me keep living at the house. If you're still feeling alarmed, just be reassured that this post has absolutely nothing to do with D. Nothing. We're not breaking up. But I was thinking about all the lame breakups I've been through over the years and I suddenly had an urge to list my top ten worst break ups ever. Why? I don't know. I just did. But as I was thinking of my top ten worst breakups ever, I realized that I've been broken up with much more recently than I thought. After all, I've been married for over two years so I can't have been broken up with for awhile, right? Right? Wrong.

In the last year I've been through something I like to call a friendship breakup. What's a friendship breakup? you ask. Well, since you asked, I'll tell you.

See, when you break up with a boyfriend or a girlfriend, you, at some point, make an official declaration that your relationship is no more - that it's not working out or you're growing in different directions or its not them, it's you, or some other crap excuse you make up to basically say you'd rather spend your time alone or with other people than with this particular person. It sucks, but it's a part of life. It's a breakup. You do what you have to do and you move on.

But a friendship breakup is nothing like this. Friendship breakups do not consist of us lamely explaining to people why we can't continue to be friends with them. Friendship breakups are much more slimy and twisted than all of that. There isn't a set of rules for friendship breakups in our society. In our society you either have a knock-out-drag-down brawl in which you scream (or type) obscenities you hope your mother never catches you using and swear you'll never speak to each other again, or your friendship just fades into the unknown and you don't know what's going on for months and months at a time before you finally just figure one day that it's over. At which point, of course, you hear from the potential ex-friend and the cycle starts all over again. These kind of friendship breakups occur with the friends you used to have who aren't really your friends anymore but who you still hear from around the holidays or run into at a grocery story but don't even know what to talk to them about anymore.

These are not to be confused with natural-drift friendships. Natural-drift friendships occur when two friends go off in completely different directions and eventually lose touch, but the moment they re-connect, it’s just like old times. Natural-drift friendships don’t have the awkward quality that friendship breakups have because they seem to happen naturally without a lot of thought and without any guilt on the part of either party. Friendship breakups, on the other hands, produce loads of guilt and self-doubt on one or both parties and leave you stammering random sentences you hope will pass as friendly when you are forced to be in the same room together. You’ll know a friendship breakup when you see one, trust me.

So Christmas is coming and I realized that I haven't spoken to two particular friends of mine since last Christmas. And I remembered that last Christmas I went shopping for gifts for these two friends and ended up standing in the middle of the calender kiosk at the mall fuming mad because I realized I didn't even know these friends well enough to know what they'd want for Christmas anymore. Uh-oh. A friendship breakup appeared imminent. And, given the fact that I haven't spoken to either one of them since, I think it's safe to say that the breakup is probably official.

So what do I do when they call me at Christmas this year?

Ugh. I don't even want to think about it.

But I thought it would be fun to share with you some of the hints I should have taken even before the calender kiosk incident that friendship breakup was imminent.

Hint #1
Potential ex-friend called off our date for the night because her dog puked and she had to clean it up. Um, how long does it take to clean up dog puke? So what she was really saying to me was “I’d draw out the process of cleaning up dog puke from 5 minutes to 3 hours just to avoid hanging out with you”. Ouch.

Hint #2
Potential ex-friend called an hour before we were supposed to hang out to cancel with me so she could go grocery shopping. Translation? "I'd rather grocery shop, which I can do any old night of the week, than get stuck hanging out with you. Produce is more enthralling than you, and the frozen pizza section is more captivating than any single quality you possess." Again, ouch.

So you would think that after several months of unsuccessfully trying to hang out with this friend I would get the hint, right? Wrong again. She stalls, she avoids making plans, she cancels plans, and yet my hopefully niave little self still keeps trying, until the fateful day of hint #3:

Hint #3
Potential ex-friend cancels our date night. I ask her why.

She says, “I can’t hang out with you tonight because I’ve got to stay home and clean my ceiling fan blades.”

Me: "Why?"

ex-friend: "I'm having a party tomorrow.... oh, you're invited if you want."

Needless to say, I didn't go to that party. Oh, and I am officially less interesting than ceiling fan blades. *sigh*

Maybe those friends won't call me at Christmas after all.

iPod Reflections

So I was listening to my iPod (which my husband so graciously purchased for me last Christmas, and which I am finally figuring out how to use) yesterday and I just so happened to come across that old song by The Wallflowers, One Headlight.

Don't you just love The Wallflowers? I do. So much good stuff I can hardly stand it. Also, someone told me the singer is Bob Dylan's son. Does anyone know if that's true? I can almost hear something that sounds like it might be related to Bob Dylan every now and again in that song... who knows?

Anyhow, I was listening to this song, and there has always been one particular part of the song that stands out to me. It is this:

"This place is old
It feels just like a beat up truck
I turn the engine, but the engine doesn't turn
It smells like cheap wine and cigarettes
This place is always such a mess
Sometimes I think I'd like to watch it burn."

I have always loved that part of the song. Random, I know. But here's the thing... want to know why I have always loved that part of the song?

It always feels like it describes some familiar place inside of me - that the guy who may or may not be Bob Dylan's son is singing about some place deep in me.

That's as close as I can get to describing it, and I can't even tell you why it feels this way. It just feels familiar. It feels like coming home. It feels like a part of me. Its like that tired place I retreat to when I can't take anymore. And I treasure that. I really do. I love this song for that - for making me see and love the tired, messy part of me where I go to hibernate.

Weird, huh?

SHARKS!!!

Last weekend my husband, D, my little sister, Velma, and myself drove up to Sandusky, OH to jump on some of the wildest roller coasters around. Aaahhh, Cedar Point. Who can resist?

Anyhow, on the drive up we suddenly came upon a terrible stench. And a terrible stench like this by the side of the highway can only mean one thing. I'll give you a hint: Black and white and striped and stinky. Ugh.

So we come upon this terrible stench and Velma leans up from the back seat of the car where she has been relaxing, crinkles her nose and says:

"I think somebody hit a shark!"

I look back at Velma, and promptly start laughing my ass off:

"A shark?"

Velma: "Don't they have the same number of letters?"

Me: (counting on fingers while mouthing the spelling of 'shark' & 'skunk') "Yeah"

Velma: "Good, I couldn't think of the word. I was trying to spell squirrel."

Ahhh, Velma, I love you.

Two days later we head back to Fort Fun. My husband is driving and we pass a black and white striped furry thing dead on the side of the road.

D: "Hey, look, there's a shark back there!"

Velma: "What?! Where?! How'd a shark get on the highw... oh, a shark."

I think I'm going to get her Jaws for Christmas.

A Beautiful Rebellion

I recently read a book by Mark Plaiss called The Inner Rooms: A Journey into Lay Monasticism. Yes, I realize that it might seem a bit strange that I’m reading up on monasticism, but hey, what can I say? Cuthbert sent the book home with me, and when Cuthbert sends books home, it is my sacred duty to at least make an attempt at reading them. He’d do the same for me.

Anyhow, the book talks about a new kind of monasticism and a new kind of monk. Plaiss writes about those who feel called to monasticism but who live lives outside of the monastery. He says we can be accountants or writers or business people or teachers, and still live a monastic lifestyle. It is a book about resting in the presence of God, prayer, and the sacredness and value of tradition, while giving an interesting description of the monastic life.

Plaiss writes as if every thing he sees or experiences is somehow the most beautiful thing he has ever seen or experienced. His writing is prose. It draws you in and pulls at the part of you that wants to lay everything down and rest in the beauty of the spirit that could never be requited by the self. He writes beautifully and if you stop to read this book you’ll find that it somehow calms you.

When I read this book I found myself thinking of Donald Miller’s introduction to Blue Like Jazz. Miller said that he had never liked jazz music, but that one night in Portland he stood outside a club and watched a man play jazz on the saxophone for 15 minutes straight and that the man never opened his eyes the whole time. Miller said that once he saw that, he liked jazz, because sometimes you have to see somebody love something before you can love it yourself – it is like they are showing you the way. This is what Plaiss does – he makes you want to love God and explore monasticism because you see so clearly that he loves it – he shows you the way.

Anyhow, I wanted to write today about something in Plaiss’ writing that struck me in relationship to the community I am living in. Plaiss wrote an entire chapter on the idea of the monk, or the monastic, as a sort of rebellion. I’d like to share a bit of this with you:

‘The Christian, too, must be a rebel… The Christian must be a rebel against the culture of self. The book of Wisdom says, “For God formed man to be imperishable; the image of his own nature he made him”. The rebellion of the Christian, then, consists in seeking daily to uncover the image of God that resides within… This rebellion takes the form of love. That which makes the Christian a rebel, then, is the decision to love.’

‘To choose love means to deny the self, for love is selfless. Love seeks the good of the other before that of the self…. The monk is a component in this rebellion of love.’

‘For the nature of the monk is at odds with the prevailing culture. Nothing in our culture is more useless than monks. The diocesan clergy, at least, provide a service for people. Lay ministers do
likewise. But monks? What task do they perform? What service do they provide? Who do they help? What do they do? Which is exactly the point. The monk is the antithesis of everything the prevailing culture esteems. The monk is poor, powerless, and prayerful. The monk retires to a cell and prays. The monk is therefore useless to a culture that measures worth by wealth, power, status and, most of all, utility. Not only does the monk lack these attributes, the monk actively refutes them.’

‘The monk is un-American in another way. At the dawn of the twenty-first century, there is a strong tendency in America to confuse freedom with license, uninhibited action. There is a reluctance among Americans to tolerate restraints on behavior and a strain of intolerance
for those who advocate such restraints. The monk, on the other hand, seeks to die to all those desires of the heart that enslave us to selfish actions. By doing so, the monk attains freedom.'

First let me note that I don't know what the book of Wisdom is. Is it a book in the Catholic Bible? Does anybody know?

Anyhow, in essense, Plaiss states that the monk is a rebel because he simply is, and because of the refusal to answer to the call of self - the desire to die to the self to become something more. And because the self is what America is all about today, this is the greatest rebellion of the culture. I find it interesting that he equates the action of monks with a deep rebellion against culture, while many might find the joining of a monastery (or even of a particular religious sect) to be the very definition of conformity. Ironic, isn’t it?

Prior to reading this book, I had a sense that my Tuesday Night community was also some sort of rebellion in our culture, and I’d like to explore this idea more now that Plaiss has brought it to the forefront of my mind. Some of you may not be very familiar with Tuesday Nights. I will not try to explain them here, as I’ve already written a freakin’ book today, but let me say this: Tuesday Nights are a time when our community gathers, tells stories, celebrates the good in us, and mourns the ugly stuff in us and works on change. It is a time to share the art we have created or the art that has touched us. It is a time to be authentic. It is a time to admit we are fake. Tuesday Night is a place where we simply are. It is a community of interdependence and support that grows stronger daily, embracing our differences and struggles and joy and making our lives into something beautiful. Though committing to this community of interdependence appears to be a confining conformity from the outside, it is actually a strong rebellion to the culture of independence and disconnection we live in.

Belonging to community is rebellion against American individualism.

Living in a state of interdependence with your community is rebellion against the American pride in independence.

Laying down the self to love each other is rebellion against the ‘me’ culture.

Telling stories is rebelling against the mindless technological, impersonal communication forms of Gen Y.

Mourning our ugliness and trying to become better out of it is rebellion again the raise-your-self-esteem-there’s-nothing-wrong-with-you-Dr.-Phil-feel-good-psycho-babble culture we’ve created.

Celebrating our beauty is rebellion against a culture of cynicism.

Communal sharing of time, talents, and resources is rebellion against a culture of consumerism.

And on, and on, and on, and on… You see what I’m saying, I’m sure. One of my favorite passages of scripture has always been in Romans 2:2; ‘Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.’ I hope we are doing this; I hope we are bringing this to life.

Jesus was a non-conformist. I find great joy in the realization that I might just be following in His footsteps, even if it looks like conformity from the outside. Let the world outside think what they want. Let them conform to the culture of individuality; to the dependence they’ve developed on independence. Let them look at me with pride that they have not succumbed to the ideals of a group who wants nothing more than to live and love, and to make life beautiful. Let them.

My community will continue in this great rebellion of love – a rebellion of hope, a rebellion of seeking and truth, a rebellion of our interwoven lives – and offer the world the beautiful fabric we weave. We will be community. We will practice interdependence. We will allow ourselves to become ensnared in one another. We will be the non-conformists.

We will be the authors of a beautiful rebellion.

The Scarlet Field of Can Ka No Rey

Hello, folks! Long time, no blog. Sorry I’ve been away, but I can explain… really…

Last week I took a bit of a vacation and headed up to Pokagon State Park for a few days by myself. No work, no friends, no husband, no neurotic cat. Just me, my laptop, my journal, and a duffel bag full of books. Bliss. I got a lot of journaling done, as well as a lot of work done on my book. What, you didn’t know I was writing a book? Well, I am, and I think it’s nearly finished. I got 7 chapters edited to the point where I am happy with them, and I’ve got 7 to go. I’m hoping I’ll be finished with this sometime in the next 6 months and then we’ll start trying to sort out how things end up published.

Anyhow, I also got a little body modification done on my vacation. My dear friend Cuthbert and I headed out for the tattoo parlor and got a bit of ink on my back AND we both got our tongues pierced. Whoo hoo!

I do have something to say about tongue piercing. To all of you who told me that biting your tongue hurts more than piercing it…to all of you who told me that getting your eyebrow pierced is far worse than getting your tongue pierced... every last one of you are liars. I’m hoping this tongue piercing works out for me because there’s no way in hell I’m ever getting it done again. If it grows shut, I’ll just have to think of something else to pierce. Aside from still not being able to properly make the ‘th’ sound a week later, I think I lost 5 pounds in 5 days simply from not being able to maneuver food around my swollen tongue and intruding metal ball.

At least no one lied about the tattoo.

Tattooing is one of those things that you really have to make your mind up about before you get into that chair. Once they start, you’re in it for the long haul, unless, of course, you don’t mind a half finished design gracing your body. So even though you don’t know what it’s going to feel like, you have to be willing to put up with that feeling for however long it takes to do that tattoo.

I have always prided myself on having a high threshold for pain. I am a girl, and I have had some of what I think are the worst cramps on the planet (ever had the cramps that hurt so much you throw up? Or pass out? Been there, done that) so I figured I could handle just about anything. The tattoo did hurt. And ten minutes into it I did get nauseas and had to lay down on the floor while the shop guy brought me a Pepsi. But I did get the entire tattoo. As I was being worked on, I told Cuthbert and Ken, the tattoo artist, that there was a good chance I was never having another tattoo done again. Cuthbert and Ken told me that tattooing is like childbirth – that it hurts, but it’s sooo worth it that you somehow forget how much it hurt and end up doing it again. By the time Cuthbert and I got to the mall to get body jewelry, I said there was a good chance I was never having a tattoo done that close to my spine again. You can see how a little word modification goes a long way. I’m currently working on my next design.

Here’s another interesting little tidbit about the ways body art seems to wreak havoc on one’s brain. Remember the metal bar and two metal balls in my tongue right now? It should be noted that I refuse to get metal fillings in my teeth because I don’t feel comfortable with having that much metal in my mouth. Oh, the irony. Oh, and you know how someone was poking a needle into my back fairly close to my spine? It should also be noted that I’m petrified of epidurals because I’m convinced a needle in my spine would paralyze me. Does it frighten anyone that I trust the tattoo artist with my spine more than I trust the anesthesiologist at the hospital? It frightens me a bit.

So you want to see my ink? Here’s the design I chose:

If I am smart enough I will take an actual picture of it on my body and paste it up here later. If I am not smart enough you’ll just have to live with knowing this is on my lower back.

I call this tattoo The Scarlet Field of Can Ka No Rey. Here’s the story behind it:

Imagery for this piece is taken from the literary series The Dark Tower. Can Ka No Rey is the road leading up to the Dark Tower. “The Scarlet Field” refers to the acres and acres of red roses that surround the Tower. In this story, Roland is the last remaining gunslinger (a kind of knight) and he has been seeking the Dark Tower for thousands of years. His guns are legacies, handed down from generation to generation from the gunslingers who have gone before him. The handles of the guns are reputed to have been carved from Arthur’s great sword, Excalibur. The mirror images of this piece are mirrors of the sigul on the handle of Roland’s guns. This sigul is a sign that denotes his lineage and confirms his ancestry. Without it, he cannot enter the Dark Tower. It simply will not open. And so, he approaches the Dark Tower and presents his sigul, and the Dark Tower opens to him, Roland of Gilead.

This symbol is significant to me because it reminds me that no matter how long my journey is, no matter how much I suffer or how much joy I experience, no matter what good works I do and what places I fail, what matters is my lineage – the ancestry of the blood that fills my veins and the fire in my eyes. It is a reminder that I am part of the lineage of a beautiful God, and that this makes me what I am.

To me, this symbol says ‘my victories and struggles are not what make me. They are part of my story, but they are not what I am. I am what I am because it is what God made me. I am standing where I fit’.


A few months back my good friend Cuthbert did a painting for me that tells one of my takeaway stories. This symbol is incorporated into the painting, and there is a poem that goes with it as well. I feel like the poem says what my tattoo symbolizes better than any story I could tell, so I’m going to share it here.

Field of Roses

All the pain and all the struggle,
All the fire that’s passed through me,
All the miles and all the years,
The ugliness I’ve seen and the ugliness I’ve been,
Is a part of my story.
My story, and I own it,
But it is not what makes me.
It is not who I am.

My name and place is set.
Nothing within or without can shake that.
When I hold the promise close
All is silent grace
And fluid movement.
The song writes itself and spills
From my lips of its own will.
Sometimes when I need to know
You tell me.

I lay down my sigul at the feet of your essence
And know that I am okay.
I am standing where I fit.
I scream my name with eagerness and tears,
Joy and pain.
My name is a long line of ancestors,
My name is my inheritance,
My name is my story,
My name is carved in my spirit,
My name is whispered in your heart.

There is struggle behind and its Resumption ahead.
But as I stand before you in this Field of Roses
All is calm as you let me in
And dance around me in a pillar of Silk and Perfume.
This is the destruction of my fear and hatred
And the rebirth of my childehood.

I surrender my guns
And you call me by my lineage,
The name that is mine despite all,
As ten thousand faces in the Roses sing my song.
And I am at rest.

You put What?! Where?!

Tales From the Vault: The Men I Have Known

Here we are again, with another tale from the vault… You may have heard this story before, as I wasn’t nearly as shy about sharing it as I was the butter story. But then, I didn’t date this particular guy for a year and a half, so it doesn’t seem to reflect on my character as much. You can decide what you think for yourself. Enjoy!

Tale # 2: You put What?! Where?!

Here goes…

When I was in college I lived in a little studio apartment downtown, worked full time, and went to school at night. Certainly not the easiest or most carefree existence, but it was getting me a college degree and I was living outside of my parents’ house where all sorts of craziness was known to take place. I figured my little apartment had to keep me safer from the craziness than I had been up to that point in my life, and so I lived there with happiness and (clearly false) confidence in my ability to fend off the crazies.

One of my friends from high school had a boyfriend who lived in the same apartment building as me. We’ll call her Bev and we’ll call her boyfriend Ben. I personally didn’t care for Ben all that much, for reasons I’d rather not delve into here. Let it suffice to say that I thought he was, in the words of a dear, dear friend of mine, a real douche bag. One of the first things about Ben that struck me as a huge red flag was that neither Bev or I met any of his friends until she had been dating him for nearly a year. Did he not have friends? Were his friends so freaky he was afraid to introduce us? Was he keeping his relationship with Bev a secret from them? I didn’t know what it was, but something about this seemed off to me. There were plenty of other red flags – like the way he refused to tell his parents when Bev moved in with him, the fact that he didn’t want her to come over to my place and hang out with me, that he’d commit to doing things and then never do them, etc., etc., etc. But one of the first red flags was the apparent total lack of friends.

Fast forward a bit. Ben finally decided to introduce us to one of his friends, a guy we will call Stan. I have no idea where he knew Stan from, but their friendship seemed to go back aways. It seemed odd to me that it took so long for us to meet him. Time went on. We hung out with Stan a bit more. He was a little odd – he was a librarian who didn’t own a television and was uber religious in kind of a weird way – but he seemed like a nice guy. I even went on a date with him. It was, admittedly, a strange date. He took me to church, and then took me to meet his parents. On our first date. After our date he complained to Ben that I’d been dressed too provocatively (which no one else seemed to notice when I wore that same outfit to work) and decided he wanted nothing to do with me. Okay, fine. If you’re going to be weird about my shirt, you’re probably going to be weird about the gay bars and Rocky Horror Picture Show parties and everything else about my life, so it’s probably better if you go now anyhow. My feelings were not hurt.

Ben, Bev, and I continued to hang out with Stan on a periodic basis. He continued to seem strange. One of my clearest memories of Stan is in Ben’s apartment. We are getting ready to watch the movie The Nightmare Before Christmas. Stan is sitting on the sofa and suddenly has this reaction:

Stan: Ooooh! The Nightmare Before Christmas?!

(pause)

Stan: That is my favorite!! (slaps knees with both hands),

Favorite!! (slaps knees again),

Favorite!! (stop with the knee slapping already!)

movie! (claps hands together like a teenage girl watching N’Sync and does the gayest shoulder shrug I have ever seen)

Me, Ben, Bev: (look on in amazed silence)


Anyhow, let me get to the point of this story.

One day Stan tells Ben and Bev that he had to go to the Dr. for an appointment. It’s just said in passing, something like, ‘Oh, and after I went to the Dr.’s office, I had to stop at the store to get stamps,’ or something like that. No one thinks anything of it. Then, a few weeks later, Stan mentions that he was at the Dr.’s office again. Again, it’s just said in passing, and no one thinks anything of it. A few weeks later, it comes up again. Most of us don’t go to the Dr. three times within a span of a few months, so it is starting to seem strange and a little bit alarming. But Stan doesn’t seem to be overly worried about it, so no one questions him.

Again, a few weeks later, Stan mentions that he’s been to the Dr.’s office. By this time Bev is getting annoyed. She is not the kind of person to wait for you to say whatever you need to say. If she suspects there is a story, she wants it, and she wants it now! So Bev decides that dammit! if Stan is going to keep bringing up these random Dr. visits without any explanation, she’s just going to ask him why he’s going and get it over with. A few more weeks go by. Again, Ben and Bev make plans to hang out with Stan and again, Stan mentions that he’s been to the Dr.’s office. Bev can’t stand it anymore. She asks him why in the hell he keeps coming over and saying he’s been to the Dr.’s office without telling anybody what’s wrong with him. Stan then reveals his great affliction.

Stan tells Bev that he was worried that his ass smelled bad. At first thought, one might think, duh! of course your ass smells bad. You sit on it and sweat on it all day long, it’s confined in your boxers or tighty-whities 24 hours a day, you fart in there, and God knows what else. At first glance, one would not think this is an affliction worthy of medical intervention. Then you hear the rest of the story.

Apparently Stan thought he had an excellent home remedy for the case of the stinky ass. He decided deodorant would do the trick. Yes, you read that right. Deodorant. On his ass. According to Stan, this did alleviate the problem of the smell. I guess that’s not surprising, if you think about it. But Stan was not anticipating the adverse affects of putting deodorant on one’s ass (sorry to interrupt, but what is it with the men I know slathering weird substances on their bodies? Is it just me? Am I a magnet for this crap?). And who would? Deodorant works fine for my armpits, which are also very smelly and confined on a normal day, and it doesn’t cause any weird side effects there. Why would it behave differently in an ass environment? I simply don’t know. What I do know is that when Stan started to regularly apply deodorant to his anal-regions, he grew himself a nice crop of ass fungus. This new and interesting fungus was the reason for Stan’s repeated visits to his physician. Ass Fungus. Didn’t even know you could put those two words together, did you?

Now that you know the story, I’ve simply got to make a few points:

First of all, who smells their own ass? Are any of you out there even that flexible? I’m not. And who is worried about it enough to even try? Let me just say this: there is no way in hell that any straight man on this planet is that worried about the condition of his ass. No way. Perhaps there was another reason Stan was upset about my supposedly ‘revealing’ shirt. Perhaps he doesn’t like boobs. Come on, Stan, just admit it. I’ll love you all the more for it.

Secondly, if you have a medical condition that makes you want to die of embarrassment, like, say, a self-induced, homegrown fungus on your ass, you might not want to announce your every Dr.’s appointment to the world. Really, Stan, if you didn’t want us to know, you shouldn’t have made it so completely obvious something was wrong.

Thirdly, I’d really like to know whether the offending product was a deodorant or an anti-perspirant, just for the record. And maybe the brand name too.

One can never be too careful.