So my lips.
I had noticed a wee bit of tightness associated with sunburn on Sunday. I was a little irritated by this because I actually had specifically put on lip stuff with spf 25. But it was no matter, for they were tight and somewhat sore and red. I put on some Lush lip stuff and smugly went on my merry way.
Esteban and I spent Sunday tooling around. Esteban was hungry for barbeque, so we drove down to Appleton and partook in the joy that is Famous Dave’s menu. I declared that we shouldn’t eat much because I wanted to split a dessert with him. I always want to try their desserts, but usually after the platter of ribs, corn bread, two side items and corn on the cob, I am unable to think of anything but an emergency stomach evacuation. One of my fatal flaws is that I always think I am much more hungry than I really am. I don’t think ahead. I order full meals, take two bites, and then sit there with a guilty expression. But this time’ this time! Not only was I starving and had not eaten anything all day, but I was going into lunch with a PLAN. There would be sweet revelry like none have ever seen before.
Thus, Esteban ordered a smaller dinner of rib tips and I ordered a sandwich. Which, to my surprise, came with corn bread, two side items and corn on the cob. And who am I to back down from delicious drunken apples (imagine a hot apple pie with no crust to slow you down) and delicious spicy baked beans? I am not that girl.
That has nothing to do with my lips, just so you aren’t trying to tie everything back together to the beginning of the entry. But the whole time, I was like ‘oooh,.. ouch. Barbeque sauce. Ouch!’ And yet I kept eating because even through the pain, it was so very delicious.
Of course, I could not finish my meal and was hoping that some kind deity would smite me over the head for gluttony and I would no longer suffer the overstuffed tummy and the fact that there was no dessert to be had on that day. But some day. Some day. Oh yes. Some day.
That evening, I had been planning to finally see the Pirate movie with Mo, but she was nowhere to be found. She piked on me. Her excuse on Monday? ‘I was in a funk.’ I’m sorry, but there is nothing that cannot be unfunked by Pirates. Pirates will not put up with a funk. You funk? You walk the plank. End of funk.
This is, by the way, the second time I’ve attempted to see the Pirate movie. The first time, Esteban and I had a coin toss to decide whether we should see the Pirate movie or the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Plus One Chick. I picked heads, because pirates have heads. Heads it was (Arrrgh!) and off we went to see the Pirate movie, but avast ye mateys, the local theatre website had listed the time wrong and it was twenty minutes into the movie, so we opted to wait another twenty to see League. Which sucked. And now Mo and her funk. The world is conspiring to keep me away from the boys in eyeliner. First Human League and now this.
Random journal link of the day:
Every time I see this diary in my referral stats, I get Verve Pipe’s ‘The Freshmen’ stuck in my head.
Every. Stinking. Time.
So by Sunday evening, my lips, they were on fire. I was wondering through the house trying everything. The Lush lip stuff. Some Aveda moisturizing stuff. The blue Ultimate Moisture stuff that smells like Froot Loops. EVERYTHING. Nothing was helping. Nothing was stopping the fire on my face. Nothing. They felt like two strips of sandpaper had been stapled to my face.
I slept fitfully that night, clutching a tiny tube of Lip Smackers in my hand like a crucifix. When I woke, I found that my lips were no longer burned as much as chapped. Extremely chapped. They were puffy, as though I had been visited in the night by the Collagen Fairy. The role of Weetabix was now being played by Steven Tyler’s Lips.
I am not exactly deficient in the lip department. Mine are decent almost pretty lips. With the added swelling, they now stick out from my face, as though they’ve been victims of a very select bee attack. My top lip is the size of my thumb and my bottom lip could eclipse the very sun. Not only are they huge but they are now covered with these tiny little bumps. Papillae? Was my tongue staking out new territory by laying down taste buds? To purse my lips is to experience a delicious agony that is only akin to scratching a chicken pock until it bleeds and scars.
I went out to lunch with Carissa and Penny. They watched as I attempted to apply some Aveda colored Lip Saver, but then shrieked in pain and rushed to wipe off the burning stuff with a napkin.
Penny: Why don’t you use Carmex?
Carissa: Yeah’ or Blistex.
Weetabix: I don’t like to use medicated stuff. I don’t need them. My Aveda stuff is fine.
Carissa: It’s obviously not fine.
Penny: I use things with medication all of the time, it helps, it really does.
Weetabix: No! My lips are crazy sensitive right now. It would burn the little skin I have left.
Penny: No, that’s why you need the medication!
Weetabix: And then I’ll have to use it all the time. That’s how they get you, those medicated lip people. They pimp out their ‘healing’ lip gunk and pretty soon you’re pimping out your teenage daughters for a tube of Blistex. I don’t need another addiction.
Carissa: And you’re not relying on something right now?
Weetabix: Is this some kind of LIP INTERVENTION!?!
Penny: We’re here to help.
Carissa: Weet, you have a problem.
Penny: Don’t just use lipstick. At least get something from the drugstore.
Weetabix: (cradling her lips in her hands, mournfully)Those are gateway drugs! The first one’s always free!
Luckily, Penny diverted attention from my bodacious lips by doing a strange juggling routine involving ice, Mountain Dew, and guilt. However, their words of concern weighed heavily on me and when I left work, I found myself, hands shaking, in front of the medicated lip goop display at the drugstore. I was unable to pick my poison, sneering at the cherry flavored Chapstick and the Vaseline Intesive Care Lip stuff in the dispenser that looks exactly like spooge coming from the tip of a penis. I ended up purchasing a little pot of Carmex and a tube of Blistex. The idea of lip stuff so powerful that it doesn’t even mess around with applicators appeals to me. The Carmex smells like grandmothers and comes in a little camphory pot that you slick your finger around. It’s like lip vapo-rub. The tube of Blistex has a tiny little nozzle and cap. There’s no smushing it on your lips directly from the tube, as it would certainly maim my pore swollen nodes. No, I must dose my lips from my finger, hoping that the cool minty feeling from the Blistex is the healing action at work rather some psychotropic Allantoin, which makes me think of the song ‘Allentown’, which had the best video of the 80’s because it showed dirty men taking showers and surprisingly firm steel worker asses. The Blistex label also portents the destruction of cold sores and severely dry, cracked lips. I’m not certain that what is going on with my lips can even be described as ‘severely dry’. It’s like I’m slowly morphing into some version of Lara Croft Boob Raider, one sad male ideal beauty trait at a time.
As I was writing this, Mo just walked over by me and said ‘Oh my god, your lips are still SO HUGE. It’s like you got those shots!’ and then she laughed at me. And then some more. And then laughed and laughed and laughed until I told her that she could go away now. But she said that they look better than yesterday, when I apparently looked like a poster for The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
I took pictures last night. You know that there had to be pictures. It had to be documented so that when my lips inevitably take control of my body, the scientists will have something to study. However, I got up in the middle of the night to take them, so I’m not posting them because I have serious sleepy eyes and funky hair, not to mention the lips of Louis Armstrong. And also, I know that people with sensitive stomachs read this web page and I wouldn’t want to cause any convulsions.
Oh, and Esteban said they looked hot. Then he made an inappropriate suggestion and pointed at his crotch.
You just know that this is Fate’s way of punishing me for all of those times that I worked my pout to my advantage. Note to self: Next time I see Fate, I’m so going to kick Its ass.
