« Go Go. Go Shorty... | Main | OMG TTC IS SO OOC »

March 11, 2008

Brown Skin Lady

Hi.

So. My skin is turning against me.

What do you know about hormonal acne? Do you know that it’s so fucking hot?

Dude, I woke up right after my 31st birthday with two knots on my jaw line. I was like, Yo! And I kept touching them, thinking oh my goodness this can’t be happening.

Oh, bitch, but it is.

It’s all going down right now.

In January, I went to my lady that does my facials and waxings. My skin was broken out worse than it had ever been, but there were no nodules, no hard lumps, no overnight morphing into Rocky Dennis. As she was doing my extractions, she said, “Melissa, this is the worst it has ever been. What are you using?”

This was on some ominous type shit. I was feeling like the breakout was a sign of ugly shit to come. And when she asked about my skin, it was in an accusatory kind of like stank tone. Because, you know, I am only really using the products she tells me to use. The tone is the kind only my lovely Egyptian aesthetician can get away with. You know what I’m talking about. She can be brutally honest and say really hardcore stuff about my skin and in the same breath call me “my baby” and I understand that she means well. And at the same time, I feel like I am in trouble if my skin acts up even though I did nothing wrong. We go way back. She is territorial with my face, but mostly my eyebrows.

Matter of fact, I went to the other lady that does my henna tattoos on my hands and she convinced me to do some threading because I was overgrown in the eyebrow department. I was only overgrown because I had gotten my waxing schedule all messed up. I like to do everything in one big beauty day. Top to bottom. But I had a couple engagements requiring either armpit exposure or moustache removal, and the shit got all messed up. And now all the hairs are growing in at different times so I decided to just get granola and grow all my shit everywhere out and do one big satisfying visit.

Now, in the henna place, my lady who was once crowned Miss Bangladesh, was really selling me on the eyebrow threading. I’ve done threading before. I am just a waxer now and I can only have it done by Miss Egypt, you see. She knows the ins and outs of my left eyebrow that has a hole and grows in a different direction than the right and yet she can make them look like twins.

So Miss Bangladesh is really selling the threading.

I have a really hard time saying no, especially when the pitch involves a roundabout way of actually calling me ugly. I mean, that’s how I took it and that shit hurt my feelings. Miss Bangladesh had an equally difficult time reading my body language and hearing “um, nah” to mean a stern hell to the no. So she convinced me. And now I have a sharpness, an edge, a meanness to my face. I’m sure she didn’t mean to make me look mean. To a random passerby, I’d look like a regular lady who gets her eyebrows done but I know how my face looks best and this ain’t it. Eyebrows are everything. I only know that because for 28 years I had the shittiest eyebrows ever (self-inflicted) and had nerve enough to go on TV with them. Wow.

Now, Miss Egypt will be very upset and I will totally get in trouble so I have to grow my shit out for the next 30 days, i.e. avoid my appointment with Miss Egypt for a whole month and then act like I did not cheat on her. That’s what it boils down to. I feel guilty like I cheated on her and I would never cheat. It’s that Miss Bangladesh had the spool of thread all in my face, like. And I just, I just couldn’t say no. It wasn’t even enticing. It was that she knew if she called me ugly I’d be vulnerable and agree to do it! SHIT!

So back to my facial.

Miss Egypt was like, “Are you sure you are only using the serum?” And then she was like (!) “My hands hurting, this is so bad…” Cue the Wendy Williams blaring shock sound.

So a couple weeks later. Ominously enough…

The nodules. The hard bumps. I am tripping now.

Go on my MySpace right now and look at the default picture. That is not Photoshopped. That was my real face a year ago. Shit ain’t like that now. Trust. From the nose up, my face looks like the MySpace picture. But from the nose down, yo! For real, my face is sabotaging me.

So I made myself an appointment with my dermatologist. This is not considered cheating. This was a medical emergency.

This is the dermatologist that put me on Obagi. The Obagi is a miracle and I believe in it. But I believed in it more so when I was a childless housewife with nothing do and I could melt my face off, 47 weeks straight, in the privacy of my home to my heart’s content. Now I have to contend with this thing called “adulthood” which requires that I have a “job” where I have to answer to a “bossman” and interact with people that I hope don’t recognize me as a 22-year-old reality TV persona. Luckily for me, I have successfully morphed into a real nobody and I only get recognized like ten times a week, usually in social settings where I can choose my own adventure. Like, “You know what it is! My husband bought the air compressor from your husband.” But my favorite is, “I do catalog modeling for vitamins and herbal supplements. I’m in Target’s thing like every Sunday. Yup. Weird, right? So…”

Lately though, I just hope they don’t recognize me eva because I’m mad self-conscious about the nodules, which, in all their sexy glory, grow overnight and shit. DAMN IT ALL TO HELL!

The dermatologist is like, “You have hormonal acne.”

I’m like, Hurrah m’fucker hurrah!

So essentially I did all that Obagi work for nothing? All that! See, Obagi is lifetime shit. You do it until you get the results you’re happiest with and then you go on a maintenance program. I got my results, thought I was too cute to stay studious and now I’m all jacked up again.

So all that for nothing! All that! So my face can turn around and laugh in its face? Wait, can my face really laugh at itself? Whatever. Shit’s going down and my skin is BRUTAL right now.

No concealer can do the trick because there is a texture there. A hard lumpy nodule. Sometimes two side by side. Enjoying picnics and shit. They roll out, day by day, kicking it. Multiplying. They love each other. They make love to each other. They multiply. Singing J Holiday songs to each other. Bed, bed, bed.

I hate them.

(Sigh).

Oh I know.

This is all vanity speaking. There’s a war going on. Puppies getting thrown off cliffs and shit. Wifed up governors buying whores. I have hormonal acne. It's not that serious (it is, though). I know I need a hobby. I know there are more important things in the world. However, that doesn’t mean I am not stressed out about this shit.

So I logged onto acne.org where my people kick it, looking for some solace. Just depressed me more. I can’t get involved. Justin Beck says I have “cyberchondria.” That I have created this “hormonal acne schtick” so I have something to be upset about. I’m like, “Fool do you not see this lady that has replaced your wife? Do you see these bumps? Do you see me? Are you tripping?”

He was teasing me the other day about the elliptical. He said, “How’s that elliptical treating you?” in a sarcastic tone because I made him buy me a new one because he and I have an ongoing disagreement about [story retracted for fear of judgment]. Anyway, I said, all snippy, “It’s obviously not treating you very nicely either fat head…”

He said, “Oh I’m a fat head. Fine. Hey pizza face!”

And he said this as I was sitting Indian style on the floor with my steamer, a magnifying mirror and my baking soda paste – a Sunday morning ritual involving lots of picking that I should not be doing but I can’t help myself.

I was so sad. I didn’t tell him I was really sad. I held it inside. We were doing our married couple fifth grade banter. I can usually take it. And we usually say way more disparaging terrible things that no one should hear us say and yet we find them hysterical. But pizza face was next level. I don’t think he understands how self-conscious I am about this new skin issue but whatever. This obsession will pass when I get a kidney stone, or some other real problem. I am sure I have real problems just beneath the surface. Morgellons, I just know it.

So, I had some extractions at the dermatologist’s office. Had some shit drained. Yes, when they get big and scary, they drain them. Yes, I used the term drain. Umhmm. Totally.

Then I said, “Can’t we pour some chemicals on there to speed up the healing or something?”

I actually pleaded with the lady to give me an Obagi Blue Peel but my skin is not prepped as I have not been Obagi for a minute. Besides, you have to be put under to get the Blue Peel. Google that shit. It’s crazy and I want it with no anesthesia. If it’s not hurting, in my mind, it’s not working. Burn, melt, drain – give it to me. But she did agree to give me an MD Peel at 35% which was cool, but I have some hyperpigmentation issues as a result. If it ain’t one thing, it’s amotherfuckingnother.

I’m not allowed to be back on Obagi anyway because I’m trying to get pregnant. Oh, the irony of it all. The hormones work to bring the acne and yet, the baby is nowhere in sight. Cool baby. Where are you little baby? I have a name, a modern molded plywood bassinet with Eiffel style legs, a whole life, a home, even a father that is ready, willing and able to like you, love you, take care of you, give you drum lessons and inappropriately silk-screened onesies – all waiting just for you and yet, you’re not that into me. I understand. Is it because I’m totally self-involved? So self-involved that I just spent an hour writing in my online journal about my stupid skin problems that don’t even matter? I thought so. Sorry, it’s therapeutic.

In time, newborn, in time.

So, tomorrow I am off to another dermatologist appointment. A second chemical peel. I’m supposed to get one every three weeks until I’m all healed. It’s supposed to help with the scarring but I think it causes some. Brown skin is different. It really is. Anyway…

I hope I either pull a groin muscle or get a positive read on my dollar store pregnancy test so I can focus on those things instead. Yes, the dollar store has them cheap. But you have to pee in a cup and then take a baby plastic dropper thing and place the sample on the thing. It always says no, Mrs. Beck, not today. And then I have a glass of wine. What if the dollar store ones are faulty and I’m boozing my baby up? Shit, I never thought of that until just now. Whoops.

Hmph.

Posted by melissah at March 11, 2008 12:28 PM