Oh So Pretty

I've had a lot of good fortune in the genetic lottery. I got my Dad's height and knack for not gaining weight easily (largely because I'm lacking a sweet tooth). I've got intelligence from both sides. Aside from missing out on my Mom's boob gene, I've done well. And, during my teenage years, I hardly had acne.

I was one of those lucky teenagers. While everyone around me poured everything short of turpentine on their faces in an attempt to stop the dread red bumps, I bemoaned the occasional behemoth zit that would erupt on my nose. But once I knocked it down with some mild face cleanser, my skin was back to normal.

While most of my peers have seen their acne abate, mine has gotten worse. When I started my job out of college, my skin flared up. I don't know whether it was the new sedentary lifestyle, my poor food choices, or just the stress of paying the bills on my own that did it, but I had acne to beat the band at twenty-two. Along the sides of my face, on my chin, just about everywhere. The pimples were bad enough, but my skin is nearly translucent, so they'd leave scars once they went away. To this day, I have scars on the sides of my face from pimples I had four years ago.

Recently, I've started breaking out on my chin. I try to remind myself to not sit like the Thinker, to wash my face thoroughly twice a day, and to wash my hands often to keep rouge bacteria off my face when I inevitably end up sitting with my chin in my hand. It was not fun to go on job interviews with my face all broken out. While I was home with my Mom, we watched a Proactiv presentation on TV. I will follow Kelly Clarkson to the ends of the earth, such is the power of my love, but watching "normal" people talk about how their acne and acne scars cleared up almost convinced me. My Mom, who is in her fifties (er, 30s?) still breaks out, and we both thought about ordering a trial kit, but didn't.

The Easter bunny apparently heard my plea, as I found a small travel kit of Proactiv on my dining room table. Since a zit had cropped up on my chin sometime on Saturday, I gave it a whirl. I washed my face with the cleanser. It stung a little, but I figured that was the medicine doing its work. I used the toner, the moisturizer, and went to Easter dinner. When I got back to Boston, I did the routine again. The face wash felt like liquid sandpaper entering my pores. I noticed my face was becoming rough and bumpy, especially on my cheeks. My zit had gone down remarkably fast but the rest of my face looked unusually ruddy.

The next morning, my face was still red and rough. I used my normal Neutrogena face wash and combined it with the Proactiv toner and my regular day moisturizer (with SPF 15 to keep me looking young). All day, my face wash flushed and red like I had a fever. I haven't used any of the Proactiv stuff since Monday night and my skin's texture is still off and my face is a little redder than usual. But, on the plus side, my acne scars did go down a little.

I think once my skin returns to its regular state, I may try the toner on its own to see what happens. I had a roommate who had the Proactiv mask which I used without incident, but that was back in my acne-riddled days. And I'll probably keep the small vials of liquid sandpaper around in case I have a troublesome spot again. But for my sensitive skincare buck, I'm sticking with Neutrogena.

Tomorrow, I'll review my tampon preferences in excruciating detail. (No, not really. Come back!)

Friday, I'm in Love

Do you ever get mad? I mean, of course you get mad. But the kind of mad where you can't even pinpoint the source of your deep-seated anger, thus your anger ends up coming out in alarming levels in situations that don't really call for it? The T is where this usually happens to me. Somebody doesn't get up for an old lady, some bitch with a huge bag keeps nudging me in the small of my back with her ginormous suitcase, this guy won't move his hand a fraction of an inch to give me a better position to not go flying during an abrupt stop. While these things are annoying, my mind will immediately start flinging profanities around my skull, and I desperately try to harness the Force and send the offending person flying through the window and be shredded to death by the broken glass.

This is one of those things that isn't normal, right?

I think I have it figured out, though. I can't do what I want right now, and it's pissing me off. I don't mean this in the Paris Hilton, Veruca Salt way of wanting everything my way, but just one thing my way would be nice. A nice apartment I can afford. A new computer. Maybe winning a car or a large sum of money. Paying of my credit cards. A nice haircut. None of these things are possible right now. I did get my tax return, and aside from $100 of that money, I've got to hang onto it until I figure out the apartment situation. (Andraste, thanks for the offer. Right now, I'm staying put in the free living until they give me the boot, which should be June 1.) The sensation of being stymied in every way is just hugely frustrating to me. I feel like a college kid, scrimping for every little thing, but I'm 25. Things should not be this hard for me. I'm well-educated. I'm smart. I'm pretty. I'm talented. Dammit, something's gotta go my way.

I may take $100 of my earmarked fun money and buy Lily Allen's CD this weekend. I can not get enough of the song "Smile." Any song that embraces schadenfreude so fully is okay in my book. Also good is the song "Knock 'Em Out" because I too hate sketchy guys in bars, who seem to be the only kind of guys I meet. A little sketch to my men is fine, but if you've got gray hair and a tan line where your wedding band was until an hour and four beers ago, I don't want to talk to you.

Also on my to-do with money list: buy a new pair of nice jeans. I have this problem where I'll buy a pair of jeans at the Gap. I try them on, I'm not sure in the store, so I get them home and wind up loving them. Like an asshole, I don't go back to the store right away to buy another pair or two, and then the Gap discontinues them. The pair I have is about two years old, and I love them. They're kind of a trouser jean with a crease down my shin, hug the ass firmly but not too tightly, skim the leg, and fall at the perfect length for either flats or heels. Does the Gap make them anymore? No, no they do not. I'm not a terrorist, but I'd like to send them a clear message about their practices. "Dear Gap, Please bring back the flare curvy whatever-the-fuck you sold two years ago that make my ass look nice. I tire of trying on your jeans with the eight-inch-long zipper-cock and uncanny ability to fall directly on the fattest part of my tummy pooch. Die in a fire. Love, Amy."

So, in short, I need a beer. So much for quitting drinking after St. Patrick's Day. Have a good first weekend of spring, y'all.

Fatal Attraction to Cuteness

Friday. WHOO.

Yesterday I went to H&M against my better judgment to check out the spring clothes situation. I got my bonus from work this week, which I expected to be in the realm of $800, but after cuts from the company and the government taking it's greedy portion (hope those kids in Iraq like those bombs!), I only get to see $600. While most of it is going toward my sizable credit card bill, a girl can't dress in last season's clothes alone. I'm going out with a couple friends tonight and felt like dressing nicely, so I treated myself to a shirt dress. I look vaguely like I'm about to go on safari, but on the whole I look like an actual grown-up instead of my usual skater-punk self. Since most people in my office don't get gussied up for work I generally don't bother, but I do feel better when I look more put-together. As much as I'd love to buy myself an entire wardrobe of fine young woman's clothing, it's not in the cards until a freelance gig or a new job shows up. Or someone nominates me for What Not to Wear. Hint hint.

Tomorrow evening I head down to Rhode Island to care for my Mom after her back surgery. She's been given an all-clear from her oral surgeon and her back surgeon, so unless another tooth decides to get infected, she should be on her way to feeling better soon. At this point, it's become old hat. I sit in the hospital waiting room with my grandfather and brother, watching horrible daytime TV until the surgeon comes out and says she's okay (I hope). It would be one thing if I thought this would be it for a while, but after three major arthritis-related surgeries in three years (or so) I just feel like we're resetting the clock before she needs more surgery. I think when she's recovered from this latest round, I'm going to pressure her into seeing an arthritis specialist or something. She's so young to have to deal with all this. I also hope she loses some weight to take the pressure off her bones a little, but she's an adult and I can't make her. She's trying, but the pain makes her not want to move, which makes her weight loss minimal, which makes her pain worse, and it's a horrible spiral.

Baby and I have a whole routine worked out about this. She's got quite a vocabulary for someone who's only nearly three, but her mind is still young.

"What's you Mom's name?"

I tell her.

"Is she going to the doctor?"

"Yes."

"For her tooth?"

"No, she's done with that. Now she's going to get her back fixed."

"Oh. Her back?" Baby reaches behind her and grabs her own back.

So have a lovely weekend, dear readers. Missives from the Ocean State will begin next week.

And Now For Something Completely Different

Okay. First you break my aspiring fashionista's heart by telling me that the Filene's Basement in Downtown Crossing is closing for two years for a remodeling job like so many of the women who shop there have done to their faces. Fine. Except it seems kind of sketchy and maybe Filene's won't ever open again, leaving me bereft.

But the real kicker is this bit of news:

Filene's Basement, the Boston landmark that birthed the bargain, said it will close its original downtown store this year, and it's unclear whether it will retain its famous "automatic markdown" system when it reopens after two years of renovation.

What? What is Filene's Basement without the Automatic Markdown? It's like peanut butter without jelly. Sonny without Cher. Mitt Romney without his hair. It's just not the same. I walk by the Filene's Basement on Boylston Street on a daily basis and I never go in. To me, Filene's Basement isn't plasma-screen TVs, mannequins and doormen who aren't homeless guys looking for T fare. Filene's Basement means waist-high bins full of coal with the rare diamond somewhere inside. Filene's Basement is a bunch of bargain-hungry bitches burrowing through clothes like starving animals tear through prey. Filene's Basement is the paper signs with the same handwriting on each. Filene's Basement is the torture of bearing your cellulite to all the other women in the dressing room in the hopes of looking great in that bargain-basement find you tore out a chunk of some bitch's hair for. That is Filene's Basement to me, not this glorified Marshalls angle they've recently taken.

I don't know what's wrong with the Basement as it is now. It is not a thing of beauty but it's not meant to be. Since the Basement as it is now remains one of Boston's top tourist attractions and is recommended by endless local magazines as the best place to find a steal on designer clothes, I don't see why Filene's Basement needs to fix what ain't broken. Why can't the Basement elect to age gracefully?