Waiting Room

When I was growing up in Texas there was no such thing as sun block.

"What? Block the sun? Hell no I came outside to get a tan." In fact the only thing on the market was "coppertone" made to aid the sun's wonderful "warming tanning effect". Some of my hard core, sun worshiping, cheerleader girlfriends actually used a home made solution of iodine and mineral oil on their bodies in the summer to magnify the "tropical" results.

I could never get a tan. My fair skin just turned lobster red and peeled off, like a shedding viper, a few days later. For me there was no protection except sitting in the shade, far away from ole Sol. However sitting in the shade meant an unacceptable distance away from young female hard bodies as nude as was legal in Texas. To burn and peel was worth the sexual fantasy flirtations. To this day I do not regret that decision. However.....

Years later the iodine and mineral oil treatment has left some of those fantasy women looking like the killer in the Texas Chain saw movies, only much older and less charming. No lusting over them now, only the knee jerk Boy Scout duty to help them cross the street.

As for me, years later here I sit in the office of the Beverly Hills dermatologist waiting a hour for some lotion to finish stinging my face so I can go back into a treatment room and sit in front of a special blue light. It is a PDT treatment which I have gone through before. It is the price of a Swedish skin destined to grow up in the Texas plains.

So here I sit thumb typing my experience in a waiting room. It is preferable to watching aging starlets walk in with normal lips only to emerge later looking like someone tried to suck their face, mouth first, through an inch and a half pipe.

For me I just want to maintain the face I was given, not try and reproduce a face given to someone else a third my age.

Here is the question I ponder, as my face continues to itch like a million Mosquitos were having brunch on my cheeks. If the beauty treatment of iodine and mineral oil has proven to have the opposite intended effect years later, what will these balloon lips look like with some added years?

I figure I won't notice because I will be sitting in the shade smothered in number 50 sun block drinking vodka and thumb typing.

As you were

Jay