Mark Twain said:

Man is the only animal that blushes.  Or needs to.

And I will admit I have done a lot of things that would make any sensible person blush. And being a white girl from Michigan (land of some extremely white people – of which I am one); my skin is often reflective of my emotions. 

Just another thing that makes me fucking adorable.

There are not many things I am vain about. 

And in getting older, I have not been upset to see some of the things I liked (but wasn’t exactly vain about) go away.

Like my hair.  I used to have amazing hair.  Now it is thinning at what feels like an alarming rate.  I’m not snatched bald … yet, but there is a lot less hair on my punkin’ head than there used to be. And if it goes away, I’ll rock a big old bald punkin’ head or I’ll wear a wig. It’s all good.

But the one thing I have always been kind of vain about is my complexion.

Throughout my life I have had some pimples (some were mega and often they were at the most inopportune time – that being the way of pimples), but for the most part, my face has been unblemished. 

Until recently. 

Recently, I’ll be sitting there minding my own business and all of a sudden I’ll have a hard sore bump on my face – or two or three.  They stay for a while, go away and then some more show up. 

And when I get up in the morning, my forehead, is covered by all these itsy-bitsy hard red and white bumps, and while many things that are itsy-bitsy are cute as can be, these are not cute in any sense of the word.

And I hate them.  A lot.

So I start doing a little research and – it seems I now have Rosacea. 

Well fuck me. 

A condition that causes redness and often small, red, pus-filled bumps on the face.
Rosacea most commonly affects middle-aged women with fair skin. It can be mistaken for acne or other skin conditions.
Key symptoms are facial redness with swollen red bumps and small visible blood vessels.
Treatments such as antibiotics or anti-acne medications can control and reduce symptoms. Left untreated, it tends to worsen over time.

So I e-mail my doctor asking if she can handle this or do I need to see a dermatologist (not that you get to see any doctor right now – it’s all virtual).  And she responds by asking do I want the pill or the gel?  Both are antibiotics.  I am against the overuse of antibiotics – or I was until my face turned into a zit playground.  So gel it is. 

Oh, and there’s no cure.  You just have to treat it for the rest of your fat old lady life.

I got to skip the trauma of teen acne only to get to enjoy it in my “golden” (i.e. red and bumpy) years.  Who says God (TIDBI) doesn’t have a sense of humor?