oh, wait. Sometimes, I think I really should have listened more closely to all of that new age hippy dippy crap that was floating around my childhood home. You know, the one that believed that if you had an ear infection it was because you were listening to gossip, rather than routing around with dirty Q-tips in there. I remember one year I got a Herman Hesse library for Christmas. I was 11. Seriously. You try reading Siddhartha when you’re 11. Just you try it. The following year, I got some Carlos Casteneda and also Anne of Green Gables. Now THERE’S a literary cocktail. You’d have thought it would have sunk in. I mean, I believe in karma, on some level. I really do. But would I actually take a moment and apply it to my life? Kind of like, What Would Buddha Do? No. Because that would make sense. And I’m not about making sense on any level. I’m about frolicking along on my merry little way, wanting the instant gratification at any cost and delighting in such hedonistic pleasures as a smug sense of self-righteousness.
So the hives.
The sun block I used gave me hives.
The sun block that I touted around with serious smug glee over Esteban’s sunburned blisters. ‘SPF 45’ I’d sniff, looking dismally sympathetic to his pain, when inside my head, a holy roller shouted ‘Repent, sunchild, and ooze on the splotchy hell fires of melanoma! Thou shalt use the UVA protection or face eternal suffering not to mention premature wrinklies!! Bwahahaha!’
It’s karma.
The very fact that I have a perfect hive pattern in the negative shape of my swimsuit is complete and utter poetic irony. And not the Alannis Morrisette kind of ironic either.
It started Friday. I’ve had this entire Tip O’Neal thing happening on my face, all red and splotchy. Ok, maybe that was the rosacea, although I’d never seen it quite like that. My dermatologist did change my prescription, so maybe it was the new face junk. Ok. Prescriptives makeup mostly covered it. Not a problem. But then I started to notice that my shoulders and back hurt. A lot. As though I had gotten sunburn, even though they weren’t burned in the least. My armpits, which HAD gotten a burn, were doing marvelous. It was all very puzzling. Then it started to itch. I began gyrating against doorjambs, digging furiously at what I could reach. A lovely splotchy mess appeared on my back and shoulders, matching my rosy complexion.
Apparently, I must have carelessly used some of whatever was lying around the pool for a quick reapplication on my ‘high parts’ which had been feeling a little burn on Thursday. My back, shoulders and face.
It’s karma. I suck.
After a miserable night of little sleep followed by a half hour shower this morning as I let the water beat upon my back (hey, it’s not technically scratching!), I called my dermatologist. ‘I have a horrible rash. I’m miserable. It’s getting worse. I have hives all over my back and I may very possibly be driven to insanity by this evening if it’s not taken care of.’ I said to the receptionist, envisioning miracle cures, instant shots which would visibly reduce the hives before my eyes, like stop action photography or something.
‘I can get you in for September.’ The snotty receptionist replied, as though she were actually doing me a favor.
‘No. You don’t understand. I will be one gigantic hive in September. People will look and point at the pulsating red girl begging strangers on the corner to scratch the spots on her back. I’ll be giving blowjobs for hydrocortisone by then. Please. You’ve got to help.’ I beseeched her.
‘I can get you in for early September. Otherwise, you’d better call your primary care physician.’
I hate the dermatologist. Seriously. I had half an urge to walk into that office, lift my shirt and say ‘Scratch it, bitch! And use your fucking nails!’
So I called Doctor Perky. She was busy until 3:30. I didn’t want to wait that long, so I managed to see her nurse practitioner in the morning. He wouldn’t give me a shot of anything because I had other things to do that day, such as driving myself home and sitting upright without drooling. He did give me more Prednisone and some kind of HyrdaCortexBlisterMakeItStop stuff. And told me to keep schmearing it with hydrocortisone.
One cool thing though: Got weighed. I’m about ten pounds shy of my wedding day weight, which makes sense because I can wear my medium jeans and that’s the last time I wore those. I suppose I could just think of them as weight levels instead of sizes (they’re all the same size but they fit completely different). He also decided that the snotty bitch who got my weight wrong by 50 fucking pounds must have screwed something else up because otherwise, I lost almost 24 pounds since June 11 and that just doesn’t make sense. I stuck my tongue out at her when I left. Then I asked her nicely if she’d scratch my hives.
Mofo karma. Gah.
Dear Opi,
My fingernails look smashing, except that I realized today that you must have gotten this color by melting down thousands of Malibu Barbie Dream Cars. The color is freakishly pink.
I like it.
Sincerely,
Weetabix
Dear Mattel,
So how’s that whole ‘Screwing Up the Self-Image of Young Girls and Confused Boys with Freakishly Proportioned Fashion Dolls’ thing working out for you? Great. Listen, you should really think about giving Ken a unit. Age 13 is NOT the time to find out that boys don’t sport a small hard plastic nub. I’m just saying.
Thanks,
Weetabix.
Dear Pool Goddess,
You’re my new hero, too.
Rock on,
Weet
