The Great Peel Advances

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Last weekend I was on a boat for six hours straight. In the hot, hot sun. Sporting six applications of SPF-whatever-was-on-board. SIX applications I tell you! And still I have the most terrible sunburn.

Not only do I have said terrible sunburn, but you can see exactly where the sun was in the sky based on the burn patterns across my body. My left half is significantly more lobsteresque than my right. The inner part of my right leg is crimson, while it is the outer part of my left leg that is burned. I have (gasp! the horror! the shame!) bright white sunglass lines blaring from each temple and across the bridge of my nose. My shoulders got the worst of it, though. Oh, how deep the red of my shoulders.

Sleeping is a treat I'm not even sure I can describe, but I'm beginning to think a Ph.D. in yoga would have been helpful in this situation. After several nights of pretending I'm a contortionist I have found that it doesn't hurt so much if my lower half rests on the side of my [relatively unscathed] right leg, while the top half of my body stays flat, my head slightly elevated so as to reduce the amount of touching between shoulders and pillows. Throw a blanket into the mix, though, and everything is just fucked.

Gentlemen: Here is yet another way in which you are genetically blessed while we ladies are built to suffer: boobs. For when one possesses boobs, it is mandated that one must don a bra if one's boobs are any sort of large or bouncy (mine are both) before going out in public. And every time I carefully, painstakingly, pull brastraps onto my shoulders I let out a yelp that makes my dog flee in terror and the cats scurry under the bed. It HURTS.

But NOW - five days post-sun exposure - the peeling has begun. And the itching. It is...severe. My skin is...patchy. In between treatments of cooling and delicious aloe vera after my shower in the morning and before bed at night, I've been slathering on Aloe Vera After Sun Lotion which is wonderfully moisturizing (despite the label blathering on about how it's actually to "prevent and protect from the drying effects of wind and cold weather" (heh? then why do you call it 'After Sun Lotion' and not 'After Wind and Cold Weather Lotion'?! Get it together, Walgreen's label peeps!)).

I wish I hadn't left my camera on the boat in Minnesota, for the photos would be too amazing to not show you all. Really, you would be astounded. But alas, I have no pictures to share. I can only leave you with the promise that I am RED and BURNED and HURTY and PEELING. And a big, fat reminder to all my fellow fair-skinned folk to make SPF 4 Frillion your new BFF and stay your asses in the shade. Learn from my mistakes!

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