SuperZit and His Trusty Side Kick The Over Plucked Eyebrow

I have no idea what has been going on with me lately, but it would seem that I have gotten myself
into a bit of a situation. I have been lucky my entire life (knock on wood) to never have had bad acne or problems with pimples of which to speak. Having said that, in the last week I have managed to grow the largest, ugliest zit of my life, and it doesn't seem to be disippating anytime soon. I was under the assumption that most of a person's pockmarked problems came during puberty. Apparently, I was wrong. We have all had the occasional stress, sweat, PMS, or special-occasion-to-go-to-so-let's-grow-a-crater-on-my-face zit. You just deal with it. But this one, oh this one has panache.Truthfully, this would not be an issue if it were not directly in middle of my face, planted strategically on the bridge of my nose so that it is clearly visible to everyone within a hundred yards of me. Also, I can see the edge of it in my line of vision without having to cross my eyes, so I am under constant reminder that my face is being invaded. I can't even comfortably wear my sun or reading glasses without angering the beast (which means that it swells and gets redder, yay!). This morning as I stood in front of the mirror pleading with it to go away, I am damn sure that I heard it laugh and saw it

flip me the bird (proverbially, it hasn't yet developed hands, but I think it is only a matter of time). I might as well name it and give it a hat, because it has taken on a life of its own. As such, for the last 5 days as I have watched this monster take over my face I have decided to dub this thing SuperZit.
SuperZit doesn't seem to have an arch nemesis (in fact I think it is safe to say that it is mine) or an Achilles's heal; as nothing seems to deter its growth. Everything that I have tried to do to this thing seems to be totally ineffective. I have poked, pinched, proded, begged, pleaded, dabbed toothpaste, crushed an aspirin to put on it, tried sworn-to-work potions, and tried to cover it with makeup.*As if this were not enough I realized a couple of days ago that my eyebrows were beginning to snuggle in the middle of my forehead again. This is nothing new. I am of Hungarian and Scottish decent, I was born to grow inappropriate facial hair and cook potatoes. But as I got to looking at the eyebrow situation I realized that apparently my left eyebrow has progressively gotten shorter in the process of separating the two lovebirds in the last few months. So to accompany SuperZit on the right side of my face, I now have its sidekick The Over Plucked Eyebrow regrowing on the other. I couldn't feel more put together right now if I tried.
Just to give you a real idea of the situation, I cannot put makeup on SuperZit because it makes it look as though it is painted up for Mardi Gras, and I have to draw in just part--not all of--my left eyebrow so that it matches the other while I let the wily little hairs grow back in. All the while I have to wonder if SuperZit has come to a head yet looking like an Egyptian plague, and I have to wonder if I have yet made an unrealized wipe of the eyebrow smearing pencil across my forehead and/or eyelid. Good times. I look like a bi-polar beauty school drop-out who doesn't have the attention span to put together her whole face. This is not my shinning cosmetological moment, let me tell you. Why don't you just go without the eyebrow pencil, you ask? Because the way that the hair is currently growing in it looks like I have some kind of rare eyebrow mange, and the short little hairs that are growing back in look as though they are waving to everyone. And let's just say if they are waving to people they might as well be holding up a neon sign that directs everyone's attention right to SuperZit. I really thought that this awkward stage was long gone. What I didn't know was upon finding a tiny village of chin hair that I didn't have on the last day of my 29th year but found and evacuated on my 30th birthday I would again be dealing with teenage pimple-style problems again. So for now I will just take the hits as they come. Keep on keeping on. And try to find the kryptonite to the god-forsaken SuperZit on my face so that I can put on my oversized sunglasses to hide the disaster that is The Over Plucked Eyebrow.

*Which I might add is like putting lipstick on a pig: neither practical or effective.

The Art of Bumbling Ballet or The Demolition of Go-Go

Gracefulness. Women are supposed to have it inherently. I am here to tell you that it skips a generation...or maybe two (as two of my nieces are just as helplessly uncoordinated as I am). I am hopelessly clumsy. I have run into walls, fallen up and down stairs, fallen out of and into chairs, as well as a number of other calamities. I have on separate occasions cracked a rib waxing a truck, rode my bike into the only pole in the yard, fell out of an apple tree with a root-beer float in my hand, burnt my finger lighting a candle in a bathtub full of water, and never once I have I met a patch of ice that my ass did not directly meet. I am sure that this often looks like something that could only be performed by a cartoon character, and I can assure more than once I have rang my bell and heard the birds tweet and seen stars. But I have to laugh at it. If I didn't I would probably slip on a puddle of my own tears, step on the cat's tail, and knock out my front teeth trying to get cookie dough out of the fridge.

Perhaps the most famous of my butterfingered casualties is that of Go-Go the Walking Pup. The year was 1990, and all that most any little girl wanted for Christmas that year was this delightful, white-furred, walking, barking ball of joy. My cousin actually got one. She was such a beautiful little robotic lhasa apso with her pink bow and leash. That year Go-Go was truly the crown jewel of our Yuletide loot. It overshadowed not only my Koosh ball and Troll Doll, but also my Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle actions figures. Okay, maybe she wasn't better than the turtles, but I as the tomboy of the bunch (at the time) I was the only one that really appreciated how cool Donatello was with his storage shell or how stealthy wind-up Splinter could be. So of all the toys the four of us got that year Go-Go was the shit. We were all delighted. Unfortunately, three days after Christmas, before she even lost her new toy smell Go-Go would have a tragic accident from which she would never recover.
The three of us had gathered upstairs at my aunt's house around our bounty. We coudn't decide what to play with, but it was clear that there simply wasn't enough room in the bedroom to properly walk Go-Go. After all she needed to be able to really stretch her mechanical legs. So my cousin handed her to me. "I will grab this stuff," she said pointing to a pile of Barbies, coloring books, and other yet-unused toys, "You take Go-Go downstairs." I was speechless, and her baby sister was jealous I could see it in her eyes (or maybe I am making that part up). I cradled her in my arms, spellbound by the luck of the draw. I was going to be "walking Go-Go." It was only moments, however, before everything went array. My pant legs we too long*, and I tripped. As my toes became just as quickly untangled I was tossed into the railing, banging my elbow into the banister, and the rest is history. She flew out of my arms; there was no stopping her. As I watched this ill-fated ball of white plasti-fur tumble ass over teakettle down the stairs I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Go-Go was smacking into a number of steps. I had crushed all hopes of her ever walking anywhere, but my child's innocents gave me hope. Upon descending the stairs as my cousins ran onto the landing to see what the commotion was I screamed, "She is fine! She's okay!" They raced down the stairs after me. We picked up the now disheveled toy. It was clear that Go-Go would never walk again. I had single-handedly ruined Christmas. To this day when ever my ability to stand up or walk straight is hindered by natural arrhythmic predisposition this is the story they tell. Something like: "Remember what happened to Go-Go?" Or, "If you piss her off she will just throw you down the stairs like poor Go-Go." Is what I usually hear. Way to forgive and forget ladies.
To add insult to injury, I not only killed Go-Go, but today I nearly took out this same cousin's flat screen TV. In other incidences with this particular family, I have also broken one of her mother's plates from her wedding china, chipped her little sister's front tooth, and dropped her older sister's eye-shadow in the toilet.** Upon thinking about it, I am beginning to wonder why it is exactly this woman lets me anywhere near her stuff or her children. Weird. Anyway, today I was innocently walking across the living room when without warning I was accosted by a plastic lemon that was left on the floor by some negligent child that didn't put it back into the kitchen set as it should have been. Just another example of children's disregard for the importance of fruits and vegetables, if you ask me. As I teetered first left and then right, putting my arms out for balance, trying not to topple directly into the entertainment center I banged into the television. As though the whole thing was happening in slow motion I reached out for the doomed electronic to stop its decent to the floor. I caught the idiot box just as I sank to my knees in a very odd kid of broken puppet position: one arm on the television, the other on the floor, one leg stretched out right, the other pinned underneath me, neck bent at an angle similar to that of a baby in a car seat. The laughing began before we had even righted the TV, and before she asked if I was alright she exclaimed, "Not the TV! Just like Go-Go!"***

*This is a chronic short girl problem.
**Calm down, GG. It was 20 years ago, you obviously lived.
***She might not have actually said this until we were laughing about it later, but I could hear the inflection of such in her voice.