Over the last few years (ever since I briefly used Proactive. Evil product.) I have developed two spots on my chin where I consistently get cystic pimples. If you don't know what those are, they are basically a giant buildup of pimple juice under the surface of the skin that turn into cysts, or hard masses that need to be drained, but mine always come back. If my sister is reading this, she's probably gagging by now. Sorry, Christina.
I have a bad habit of trying to pop these pimples, which is pointless because they are so far under the surface of the skin that all it does it create a giant scab on the surface where I have damanged the skin trying to squeeze out the toxins. And no matter how long they last or how good I am at not touching them, they always come back in the exact same places.
Since being pregnant I haven't gotten them until this week. I guess the hormones are good for something other than inducing Hulk-like rage at the drop of a hat, or at least they were for awhile.
I have this device that I purchased from Sephora (cue angels playing harps in heaven). It's a "blemish extractor with lance". Basically, you use one end to push out blackheads, and the other end you use to stab white heads and drain them. Glamorous, I know, but it works pretty darn well. I decided to use it on one of my cystic pimples last night, which I have only tried once before.
I have been letting these things sit, unmolested, on my face for about two weeks now. I haven't tried to squeeze them once. They suddenly got very red for no apparent reason other than the sickening heat that has descended upon the north state. Apparently all they needed was a good stab.
It hurt, as stabbing yourself in the face tends to do, but as soon as I did it there was an audible release of fluid, air and blood, and the asshole pimple automatically started to drain. Again, sorry Christina. It was glorious. There was an immediate feeling of release of pressure in my face and I got that sick satisfaction that I always had as a child when I would pick off scabs. Maybe I should have been a dermatologist, I don't know.
Seeing as I have been super lazy and haven't unpacked all my bathroom stuff yet, I had no pimple salve to put on my newly excavated pore, so I used hand sanitizer. It burned like hell, but today I am left with a smooth, slightly pink spot that should heal by the end of the week.
Why am I talking about pimples? Because people will read anything. I bet you thought there was a point to this. Well ok, there kind of is. I was reading a fellow blogger's post about her life being filled with ghosts of her past, and for some reason it made me think of my nasty skin conditions. So I guess my point is that if my friend could just find a life lance and stab her metaphorical pimple ghosts with it, all the nasty shit would probably just drain out on its own. And then she could douse it with some 98% alcohol solution and they would just shrivel and die.
........Don't judge me for this post. I'm pregnant and therefore slightly mentally crippled.
Monday, June 13, 2011
Friday, June 10, 2011
Baby blah blah.
There are many wonderful aspects of being a woman. It's amazing to get free drinks just for wearing a low-cut top, and the potential for getting out of speeding tickets by crying is always nice. It's also great to be an intelligent woman who is able to prove herself and shock the hell out of anyone who thinks women are the lesser sex. I am incredibly proud to be a woman and love many of the things that come with the territory. That being said, I gotta say... being pregnant kind of blows.
I was always really excited to be pregnant. I facetiously (but semi-seriously) begged my husband for a long time to just "knock me up" so that I could have 9 months escape from mind-numbing cramps and could have an excuse to eat whatever and however much I want. Also, I wanted an excuse to buy baby clothes, and God knows my sister's daughters don't need anymore dresses. Auntie spoils them. Unfortunately, pregnancy has not turned out to be all I wished for.
When I actually found out I was pregnant it was the day after Thanksgiving. It was a very unexpected surprise, but I was elated. I cried for about 15 minutes, called my husband to tell him, and then called my sister to confirm that the 3 beers I had drank the night before weren't going to make my baby grow up stupid. This euphoria lasted for about two weeks, and amid a bit of other drama where my doctor thought I might have miscarried (everything turned out to be fine, they just misjudged how far along I was), the symptoms started.
I first thought I might have been pregnant because I was getting dizzy all the time. After it was confirmed, the nausea started. I have to say, both my sisters experienced morning sickness with their pregnancies and I always sympathized, but secretly thought that it wouldn't happen to me or that I could handle it if it did. Uh, no. I called in to work several times and when I did make it in I frequently had to just sit with my head down on my desk. The only food I could tolerate was Ginger Ale and Smuckers Uncrustables. I threw up every morning and then spent the rest of the day with such horrifying nausea that I could barely function.
The worst part? MOST people only experience this crap the first trimester. Three months is definitely long enough of a punishment, but mine goes beyond that. The nausea eventually tapered off around week 15, but I still continued to barf in the sink every morning until my third trimester. That is roughly 6 months of barf. Now that I'm in my 7th month, I puke maybe once a week or so. I can handle it, but when I have to hear stories from my mother and mother-in-law about how they were never sick a day of any pregnancy, I have to control my rage. Seriously, my mother had four kids and my mother-in-law had SEVEN, and neither of them had ANY morning sickness? That's just not fair. If I didn't love them, I would hate them.
Speaking of rage, the pregnancy hormones have basically made me a psycho. I live on a soapbox in my normal every day life, but I usually don't approach strangers with these thoughts. Pregnancy hormones take you to a whole new level where you no longer care about hurting people's feelings, because they are doing something stupid to endanger your child. I've told a stranger that he "parked like an asshat" for almost hitting my car in a parking lot. I've confronted a guy at work who was tailgating me on the freeway at 80 mph and told him to "stop driving like a piece of crap". I recited California law to some girls who were smoking in front of a restaurant and called them out for being rude, stinky, jerks. It's been kind of liberating, but honestly feeling angry all the time is mentally exhausting. I miss being passive and quietly cynical.
The other aspects of pregnancy that I've experienced have been equally pleasant. You don't think anything could be worse than throwing up every single day until you pee your pants while you do it. Seriously. I am not someone who has a great history of bladder control (stories for another time), so it just seems cruel that pregnancy would naturally lower my ability even further. I've peed my pants because of puking, laughing, sneezing, and bending, and I totally almost crapped my pants in the car on the way home one time because the baby was doing a dance on my intestines. It is so NOT RIGHT.
You also fart a lot more, and at unexpected times. I sneezed at work and it totally made me fart at the same time, and I was hardly even embarrassed by it because I was so tired. Because babies make you tired. Even though you could just be sitting there, doing nothing, you're growing a frickin' person inside of you and it is exhausting. Oh, and the eating whatever I want? No. Not quite. When everything, including water, gives you heartburn and gut rot, there really is no pleasure in eating, and chances are it will just make you smelly and cranky. Why my husband still wants to sleep with me is a mystery at this point.
Now, don't get me wrong. I am fully appreciative of the miracle of life going on inside my body, and feeling the baby move is pretty much the coolest (and weirdest) thing I've ever experienced... until she punches me in the bladder and makes me pee on my couch. But I just feel really betrayed by how many people I know who have been pregnant and didn't make stronger attempts at conveying the difficulty of the whole process.
I'm not even a mom yet and I'm mentally exhausted. When I'm not being kept awake by back pain and "practice contractions", I'm worrying about whether my baby is going to be born disfigured or with a shitty attitude. The idea of the birth itself absolutely terrifies me, too. As if pushing a human being the size of a watermelon out your vagina isn't already a horrifying thought, you also have the delightful possibility of pooping on the delivery table in front of a room full of people, and developing hemmorhoids the size of golf balls. The pain involved is the least of my worries, strangely enough.
Point being that this is no cake walk. More complaints to come later. I still have two months left, after all.
I was always really excited to be pregnant. I facetiously (but semi-seriously) begged my husband for a long time to just "knock me up" so that I could have 9 months escape from mind-numbing cramps and could have an excuse to eat whatever and however much I want. Also, I wanted an excuse to buy baby clothes, and God knows my sister's daughters don't need anymore dresses. Auntie spoils them. Unfortunately, pregnancy has not turned out to be all I wished for.
When I actually found out I was pregnant it was the day after Thanksgiving. It was a very unexpected surprise, but I was elated. I cried for about 15 minutes, called my husband to tell him, and then called my sister to confirm that the 3 beers I had drank the night before weren't going to make my baby grow up stupid. This euphoria lasted for about two weeks, and amid a bit of other drama where my doctor thought I might have miscarried (everything turned out to be fine, they just misjudged how far along I was), the symptoms started.
I first thought I might have been pregnant because I was getting dizzy all the time. After it was confirmed, the nausea started. I have to say, both my sisters experienced morning sickness with their pregnancies and I always sympathized, but secretly thought that it wouldn't happen to me or that I could handle it if it did. Uh, no. I called in to work several times and when I did make it in I frequently had to just sit with my head down on my desk. The only food I could tolerate was Ginger Ale and Smuckers Uncrustables. I threw up every morning and then spent the rest of the day with such horrifying nausea that I could barely function.
The worst part? MOST people only experience this crap the first trimester. Three months is definitely long enough of a punishment, but mine goes beyond that. The nausea eventually tapered off around week 15, but I still continued to barf in the sink every morning until my third trimester. That is roughly 6 months of barf. Now that I'm in my 7th month, I puke maybe once a week or so. I can handle it, but when I have to hear stories from my mother and mother-in-law about how they were never sick a day of any pregnancy, I have to control my rage. Seriously, my mother had four kids and my mother-in-law had SEVEN, and neither of them had ANY morning sickness? That's just not fair. If I didn't love them, I would hate them.
Speaking of rage, the pregnancy hormones have basically made me a psycho. I live on a soapbox in my normal every day life, but I usually don't approach strangers with these thoughts. Pregnancy hormones take you to a whole new level where you no longer care about hurting people's feelings, because they are doing something stupid to endanger your child. I've told a stranger that he "parked like an asshat" for almost hitting my car in a parking lot. I've confronted a guy at work who was tailgating me on the freeway at 80 mph and told him to "stop driving like a piece of crap". I recited California law to some girls who were smoking in front of a restaurant and called them out for being rude, stinky, jerks. It's been kind of liberating, but honestly feeling angry all the time is mentally exhausting. I miss being passive and quietly cynical.
The other aspects of pregnancy that I've experienced have been equally pleasant. You don't think anything could be worse than throwing up every single day until you pee your pants while you do it. Seriously. I am not someone who has a great history of bladder control (stories for another time), so it just seems cruel that pregnancy would naturally lower my ability even further. I've peed my pants because of puking, laughing, sneezing, and bending, and I totally almost crapped my pants in the car on the way home one time because the baby was doing a dance on my intestines. It is so NOT RIGHT.
You also fart a lot more, and at unexpected times. I sneezed at work and it totally made me fart at the same time, and I was hardly even embarrassed by it because I was so tired. Because babies make you tired. Even though you could just be sitting there, doing nothing, you're growing a frickin' person inside of you and it is exhausting. Oh, and the eating whatever I want? No. Not quite. When everything, including water, gives you heartburn and gut rot, there really is no pleasure in eating, and chances are it will just make you smelly and cranky. Why my husband still wants to sleep with me is a mystery at this point.
Now, don't get me wrong. I am fully appreciative of the miracle of life going on inside my body, and feeling the baby move is pretty much the coolest (and weirdest) thing I've ever experienced... until she punches me in the bladder and makes me pee on my couch. But I just feel really betrayed by how many people I know who have been pregnant and didn't make stronger attempts at conveying the difficulty of the whole process.
I'm not even a mom yet and I'm mentally exhausted. When I'm not being kept awake by back pain and "practice contractions", I'm worrying about whether my baby is going to be born disfigured or with a shitty attitude. The idea of the birth itself absolutely terrifies me, too. As if pushing a human being the size of a watermelon out your vagina isn't already a horrifying thought, you also have the delightful possibility of pooping on the delivery table in front of a room full of people, and developing hemmorhoids the size of golf balls. The pain involved is the least of my worries, strangely enough.
Point being that this is no cake walk. More complaints to come later. I still have two months left, after all.
Ah, young love
I was friends with this kid in 6th grade who was a "skater", a rollerblader to be exact (a distinction that would later become vital to social standing). He was cute and funny, shorter than me and a little crude, which is probably why I was so drawn to him. I considered myself a good kid, I never got detention or turned my homework in late or anything like that. So hanging out with this short, quirky boy was fun, especially when I was able to shock him by cursing or by trying rollerblading tricks. We were really good friends and hung out and talked on the phone almost every day after school and during the summer. One day he asked me a supposedly hypothetical question that would turn out to be one of the first of what I considered romantic sentiments in my life.
"So, what would you do if you really liked a girl and she was really awesome to hang out with, but she was pretty much a total dog? And what if all your friends said it didn't matter and that you should just go for it but that you just couldn't get over how much of a dog she was?"
I was no fool. I knew that he didn't hang out with any other girls as much as he hung out with me, so I was pretty certain that he was talking about me. I had harbored a crush on him for the entire school year, so I pushed aside my emotions and tried to ignore how stung I was that he thought I was ugly.
"Well," I said, "I would go for it. If you get along with someone it shouldn't matter if they're a dog or not. For example, I like you a lot, even though you're so short."
Ok, so perhaps I didn't manage to push aside ALL my emotions.
I don't remember exactly how he responded, but we kept being friends and he never asked me out so I imagine he wasn't flattered at my pointing out his height deficiency. However, the point of this memory is that I was actually flattered that a good looking boy was considering asking me out even though he thought I was ugly. It didn't occur to me to be angry or hurt, I just accepted his appraisal of me and that was that.
Yes, he may have called me ugly directly to my face, but it seemed like such a nice thing at the time that a 12 year old boy would consider dating someone who wasn't pretty. At that time in life (and ever after, I would come to find out) boys just went for the cutest girls with the prettiest hair or the biggest boobs and "dated" for a week before breaking up and finding a new crush. So to my line of thinking, it was touching that he was actually attracted to my personality.
Yes, he may have called me ugly directly to my face, but it seemed like such a nice thing at the time that a 12 year old boy would consider dating someone who wasn't pretty. At that time in life (and ever after, I would come to find out) boys just went for the cutest girls with the prettiest hair or the biggest boobs and "dated" for a week before breaking up and finding a new crush. So to my line of thinking, it was touching that he was actually attracted to my personality.
And, for the sake of posterity, I wasn't even really a dog, I just had glasses that were too big for my face and I didn't understand how to dress to accommodate my changing body. This was proved to me when, later that year, I got contact lenses and started wearing tighter shirts and got asked out by three boys in one week, two of whom later got into a fist fight at a roller-rink over who got to hold my hand in the couples' skate.
Is it any wonder that we are all so screwed up regarding relationships and self-esteem?
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