Pole Dancing In The Dark

Home again, home again

It's really hard to imagine that a week ago today, I was sitting around on the
beach, coated with SPF 15, working on not getting burned. I'm not the sun
worshiper that I was back in the day. Matter o' fact, sit me next to my almost 90 year old grandmother, and I am the one that looks all pasty white unhealthy. Granted, the "career" I have chosen and my other computer based hobbies aren't exactly conducive to the baking of the skin, but nor are they conducive to the whole melanoma thing either. But the thing that pisses me off is the conversation that always takes place while on vacation in South Carolina with the fam.

Mommy dearest (to me): You need to get out in that sun and get some color, you look all pasty.
Me (as I lube myself up with sunblock): I'll be out when I am done with this.
Mommy D: You need some color!
Me: Just said I am working on it.
Cousin M (who fake bakes all year long, and arrives at South Carolina darker than most of the natives): Am I darker yet?
Me: How can you tell?
Mommy D: Cousin M, you shouldn't tan like that. All that fake baking is unhealthy.
Me: You fake bake.
Mommy D: Just for a base tan.
Me: And then you sit out in the sun.
Mommy D: But I cover my face.
Me: But you are trying to get me to sit out in the sun and get some color to my face.
Mommy D: Because you are so pasty.

The conversation continues in this vein, until Cousin M and I get tired of hearing
about which precise shade of brown is mother approved. Mommy D and Cousin M have a full length discussion on how horrible going to the tanning salons are for the skin (because sitting in the sun is so much better, right? Finally, I tell my mother to let it go, because I know that Cousin M has heard this all before. It's like telling a smoker what smoking does to their organs. It's information that most of them all ready know, but don't really care about. It's not like hearing it for the 508th time is going to cause them to go, "Really? I didn't know that. Thanks so much for saving my life. I will quit smoking now for sure!"

It just doesn't happen. Besides, my cousin is the type of person that would just go out and do it more to spite the person that is chastising her. For example: her mother forbid her to go and get tattoos, so she went out and did it. I kind of envy her obstinacy.

There were many moments of this type of conversation through out the vacation. There is nothing like spending way too much time among family to lower your self esteem to nothingness. At least I got to spend much quality time with the grandmother.

More later...

PS: To the wonderful people that have offered to help me with a new template, I am officially taking you all up on that offer. I can't afford much, but perhaps you have a wishlist?

Posted by Ethne at April 25, 2005 06:01 PM