during most months of the year, people often remark on how fair and porcelain-like my skin is.
during the summer months, those same people ask there is something wrong with me.
pasty is my motto because really, there isn't any other way to be. my childhood was spent ("thanks, mom!") with agonizing sunburns from lackadaisical sunscreen applications. my blister-burn-repeat summer schedule made most things -- summer camp, a day at the beach, a ball game, even playing outdoors -- an ordeal for me.
and it's not like i am an albino where my little pink retinas will burst into flames upon seeing the sun and my skin lights up like a vampire at breakfast. i'm italian for crissakes but the german in me makes it's a wash.
well-meaning associates suggest short but frequent trips to a tanning salon. to which i often think, if someone wanted to commit suicide would we recommend only putting their head in the oven for short bursts of time? frequent trips to the cancer box is not in my future, in part, i think i might just combust if i went in.
"your friend?" the ditz behind the counter would say as she looked up at you, "she's toast. they're wiping her crumbs out of the bed as we speak. do you have an urn you wanna take her home in?"
although i enjoy being out in the sun, sometimes the course of action necessary to protect myself is not worth the efforts. sunscreens. hats. glasses. umbrellas. constantly seeking the need for shade is all a vexing struggle to win a war against the damn thing the world spins around. (and you thought you were the center of the universe!) and, after all the precautions, only to still burn and look like a pot of boiling water was thrown at me.
oh, i've tried self-tanners. for better or for worse, my sudden bouts of tanning are short-lived simply because of the effort involved with maintenance. i am lucky i remember to shave my legs everyday.
okay, once a week. (but it's still better than when i college i attempted to craft the "au natural" look. my husband is convinced he is still picking hair from between his teeth.)
i am simply lazy. and i have a thing for weird smells, nothing makes my lips curled back than getting a whiff of foul air and then realizing the chemical smell is coming from me. all to avoid the faux pas of what one magazine refreshingly described as, "tanned fat looks better than white fat."
and while we all know the white shorts are the enemy of both the fat and the pasty, i still long to one day, slide into a pair of white shorts, with long tanned legs sticking out of them (that are my own).
until they make that little pill, i'll just need to hide out in my lair until after after the sun goes down.
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