Friday, March 10, 2006

Mercury's Retrograde

Who didn't have spring fever today? We drove with the windows down and the skin on my arms squinted in the sun after such a long time under sleeves and everyone within half a mile experienced momentary blindness by the light reflecting off their ghastly whiteness.

I'm a German/Italian hybrid. My German genes keep me near transparent for my lack of melanin, my Italian genes protect me from sunburn. I used to be so unaffected by the sun that I could sit ON it and not turn pink. Then the year Delta Hotel was deployed I spent the day at the Cape with my soul-sister. I was heluva lot of pregnant with Oscar so getting in the water was inconceivable lest I upset the tides. I sat on the beach, looking very much like this, all day long. When it was time to haul myself up and go home, everything moved the way it was supposed to except for the skin on my upper back which felt as though someone had periodically doused me with spray starch throughout the day. The next day I had blisters - BLISTERS - on my poor back. The next day the blisters cracked open and bled and the next day they supernova'd into millions of brown constellations across my shoulders. You just never know when your Italian genes are gonna quit on you I guess. Now I'm way on the SPF kick. Nothing comes between me and my sunscreen. And if that's all you ever learn from me, I am satisfied. Wear sunscreen.

1 comment:

P.H. said...

Love the image. We sugared all day. It was wonderful.