Always Follow the Instructions on the Bottle: A lesson on the dangers of vanity and impatience

I've been looking forward to this past weekend (Memorial Day) and my upcoming June 5-10 sojourn to the Southeast for months. I've been trying (with middling success) to drop a few pounds, and in the last few weeks I went crazy and racked up the credit card debt buying summer dresses, skirts, etc. in anticipation. Well, given that I live in Denver and the warm weather just arrived in earnest a few weeks ago, my legs are about the color of raw mushrooms.

Un. Attractive.

So I decided it would be a good idea to try the fake 'n' bake once more. Back in high school, before my junior prom, I bought a Neutrogena self-tanner (said to be the easiest to use since they're streak free, and Neutrogena is usually a safe bet for your skin) and used it to heighten the contrast between my pale green dress and my not-yet-summer-ready skin. It worked okay, though it wasn't as dark as I'd have liked. This time I bought a gradual build-a-tan lotion, also by Neutrogena, at target. Excellent, I thought proudly. I actually planned ahead! I will start building my tan a week before my trip to Dallas. I can wear tank tops and skirts and I won't look like a big lump of raw dough! So after my shower, in which I was careful to shave and exfoliate, I smeared some of the tanner on my skin. The bottle's directions, like all lotions, makeup, etcetera, said to test some on a small patch of skin first. Of course I ignored these. The lotion went on. Everywhere. I went to bed after carefully washing my hands (wouldn't want them to be orange, God forbid!).

The next day I woke up and my underarms were a little itchy, and I thought, I probably need to be more careful and not get any lotion under those. I knew (from several painful experiences with fragrance-containing deodorant) that the fragrance in the lotion might set off a skin allergy there. My legs, however, looked noticeably darker, as did my face and chest. So that night post-shower I smeared more lotion on my legs and a bit more around my collarbone, shoulders, and neck, careful to avoid the underarm area completely. And again I went to bed.

The next morning, I woke up looking not like a lump of raw dough, but like a crust brushed with pizza sauce. Or a very fair-skinned person suffering from heat rash. Or a child at summer camp who'd rolled down a hill covered with poison ivy. And I felt it too. My underarms were bright red, my chest, neck, shoulders and arms were mottled with red bumps, my inner thighs had dark red patches, and all of it itched. I also felt nauseated, as though I'd been poisoned. The only part of me unaffected by my toxic lotion allergy was my face, oddly enough.

I happened to have a doctor appointment scheduled that morning, and as my doctor finished her cursory examination of me for the physical, I sheepishly showed her the rash and asked for a recommendation of some kind of treatment. She recommended hydrocortisone, and I bought some at the pharmacy. I also decided to take daily antihistamines to try and calm the reaction.

And I took my antihistamines and I smeared myself with hydrocortisone. And I wore long sleeves and tried not to scratch. And after the second day, when the rash only looked like it had spread, I went home to take an oatmeal bath. Needless to say, by the time the holiday weekend rolled around, the last thing I wanted to do was expose any of my skin. It had gotten better, but I was still mottled and red and constantly itchy. I had to explain, over and over to every friend and family member I greeted in Dallas, that no, I was not contagious. Just vain and stupid.

Now my neck and chest look like a normal person's again, and my underarms have faded back to their normal mushroom hue. My immune system appears to have almost conquered this thing - way to go, I can't help thinking sarcastically. Thank GOD you overreacted to this lotion. Who knows what damage a masking fragrance could do to my cells? - but as I write this post, my upper arms and upper legs are still itching, itching, itching, and what makes it itch worse is knowing I have no one to blame but myself.

So kids, do yourselves a favor: always follow the directions on the back of the bottle. Even if you think you tried the product years ago, trust me, things can change. Formulas, your own immune system, your memory of which product you actually tried. As for me, I'm going back to my old, fail-safe tanning method: carcinogenic UV rays.

P.S.

This might become a food blog.

This is shaping up to be a carbalicious month

It's been awhile.

My blogging capabilities have been severely limited recently due to a) my apartment building's free wifi, like, NEVER EVER working, and b) all the crazy projects I've been slogging through while chained to my desk.

The funny thing is I'd actually be pretty into these projects if I weren't so pressed for time, and if my magnanimous coworkers didn't flatter me by assuming I am more knowledgeable/skilled/quick than I am. As it is, though, I've got no time to breathe this month, my resolution to go to the gym at least three times a week is becoming a joke, and my normal, nonchallenging but still somewhat important tasks are getting pushed aside. And I feel simultaneously exhausted and frustrated at how much work I'm doing and how slowly my projects are going, and guilty that I'm not doing more. Not to mention I'm driving myself crazy having to push back finish dates for projects; my hatred of being late for anything is pathological.

This situation coupled with the aforementioned lame wifi is tempting me to just go ahead and pay for internet. As much as I hate to sign any kind of telecommunications contract (why is it that phone/internet/cable companies have the worst customer service and the most devious fine print in the world?), I'm thinking it might be nice to be able to:

-leave work at a normal time
-go to the gym
-check my email at home
-work some more once I'm in my PJs and relaxed

I think it might go a long way towards assuaging my current work burnout. At the moment, though, my brain cells are all screaming for a vacation and the closest thing I've got coming up is a very short trip over Memorial Day weekend. And there's just so much to get done before May 22nd...

All in all, I can already tell that I'm going to be scarfing down a lot of pastries from the Tattered Cover cafe this month. Today's goodie? Possibly the most delicious peanut butter chocolate chunk cookie ever baked.