The Week of The Red Bumps Part 2

At first I thought it was just irritated skin from my overzealous eyebrow tweezing the day before. Then I imagined the pest ridden garden apartment was to blame; who knows what crawls over my sleeping face? Now, I'm not sure, but I think I may have some sort of facial rash of the sort that will require me to visit a dermatologist.

For those who know me fairly well, you will remember that having no health insurance means I tend to avoid any and all doctors even at great risk to my own health. I'll never forget the pseudo pneumonia I barely survived in 2003. Neither will Eric; I complained excessively. Somehow, vanity holds a higher calling card and I am desperate to visit a dermie. I'm even walking a dog for a week--a task I pretty much loathe, from having done it regularly for a year--all in an effort to make some extra cash to pay a doctor. Ugh.

Just like all of my affairs, I have asked lots of people about this horrible set of red bumps on my right eyelid and everyone seems to have their own secret treatment that I worry about implementing and possibly making things worse.

It's strange to feel that my skin has some horrible flaw. I imagine eyes being drawn to those bumps, I feel like a monster. I haven't been wearing makeup because I'm not sure if that was the source (and I imagine covering the rash up with a bunch of makeup can't be good for it.), but without makeup, I feel naked and awkward.

I wonder if all of this is punishment for the way I encountered the woman at Whole Foods who I asked about neem oil. I walked up to her and as I was asking my question, "Excuse me," she turned around, and her face was terrifically scarred from a fire, "Do you happen" a terrible fire, "to know" focus on her eyes, for fuck's sake, "where I can find neem oil?"

And then instantly wondering what a main character with horrible scars from burns would be like, how she would cope with life, a lifetime of people avoiding seeing what is so obvious, that haunting feeling that people are always staring at you a little too long, wondering what happened and how you had the misfortune to be there and survive.

Then again, I know my body has been holding small rebellions, slowly disintegrating into bone on bone devastation, to dust. I know my body hates me and this is just more proof that I cannot manage to exert the discipline I don't have to keep it in good working order. And now my face is just part of the mutiny.