Dr. Scarfinger or: How I Learned to Stop Fighting and Tolerate 2014

I have a habit of hurting myself in the same places.

I'm not even being metaphorical. I mean like, my foot. I've broken my right foot twice. And now I've fucked up my stupid right pinkie finger. Again.

The first time was at Gwendy Pagan's ninth birthday party. I always felt out of place at birthday parties when I was a kid. I was uneasy around children so fully inhabiting their own childishness. It was a skill I didn't acquire until my twenties.

Gwendy's family lived in graduate student housing on the UMass campus, buildings that have long since been torn down, buildings my memory continues to superimpose on the landscape. There are these holograms of our past, things we never get used to not seeing.

There was a row of single-story garages across from the apartments, built into the hill somewhat, enough to entice children to climb onto their corrugated-metal roofs, if those children were so inclined. I, of course, was not, but I was equally unwilling to be the only able-bodied fourth grader left on solid ground. I was the last to climb up, however, and the only one to slice her pinkie finger open on the edge of the roof. So I was also the first one off the roof, the first one back into the house, the only one in the bathroom with Gwendy while she poured hydrogen peroxide over my finger, her giggling as I despaired over the bubbles, both of us shushing the other while we wiped my blood off the tile before her mother noticed.

It left a tiny scar. It's been more than twenty years, I haven't seen Gwendy in at least fifteen, and you can barely see the scar unless you're looking for it. I look for it sometimes. It's nice to have a physical link to a memory. Of course, I have a new one now. Thanks to Wednesday night.

Hasn't 2014 been an absolute bear so far? I figured we were due some reprieve after the strangeness that was 2013, but no. I wasn't even that scared of February this year, I went into with my head high, and then...it was like a month of bombs going off around me. I got through fine, but Jesus, the casualties.

So Wednesday. It was late and I hadn't eaten, hadn't made Thursday's lunch. Sometimes it gets past 10pm and I abandon responsibility, but Wednesday, I said: 'No. Handle your business.' Business step one? Dishes. There weren't a lot, but I washed a bowl and a spoon, some forks and a mug, and then my favorite wine glass, a stemless number from a wine tour this summer.

You know, now that I think of it, I do remember knocking it over in the sink that morning, hearing it bang loudly into a mug. But it didn't look broken, and I was in a hurry, so I forgot. It was the last thing I needed to wash.

You never remember the immediacies. One minute I was humming some Beyonce, hands gloved with soap suds, the next minute the sink was full of blood. Why the hell do your fingers bleed so much?

I have lovely friends, to whom I probably undersold the nature of the injury by neglecting to mention that I could see my tendons and shit, and who advised me to splint and wrap it. Since my first aid supplies consist of a dusty package of wisdom-tooth-removal gauze and a miniature tube of off-brand Neosporin with the cap missing, I was pretty impressed with the Q-tip and Scotch tape bandage I jerry-rigged together. And I slept fine. But when I woke up on Thursday morning, I a) was dismayed it was not Friday, b) spent 15 minutes cutting the tape-gauze-swab tenting off my finger, and c) could still see my fucking tendons. So I went to the hospital.

I don't like hospitals. I assume no one like, really does, but they honestly upset me. The nakedness of the experience is too much. People come in on stretchers and I just shut down. I feel complex emotions, and this deep, overwhelming, simultaneous desire to smother them all. But I didn't have too many choices. I considered just powering through with butterfly bandages and gauze, daydreamed about the resulting mean-ass scar I'd tell people was the result of a particularly gnarly bar fight - but nothing scares the vain of heart* more than the possibility of gangrene. I can walk to Georgetown Hospital from my house in eight minutes. Also, I might have mentioned - tendons. Visible tendons.

Whenever I go to an emergency room, I am irritatingly polite, because it's never been a real emergency. I always look for something more appropriate, like a 'Moderately Uncomfortable Triage Lounge' because hi, my finger is just fucked up. It's not like I'm missing my finger. So I apologize my way through all the intake stuff, which is awkward. Especially considering everyone who looked at my finger was like 'Oh..hhh' in that way where people are trying to be nonchalant, but are really thinking 'Bitch, those are your tendons."

Also, it's a teaching hospital - which I HELLA SUPPORT - but I'll admit it's not entirely heartening when your student doctor literally doesn't know where the band-aids are. It was her first day in that particular ER, which, I mean, that happens! And she was mostly super competent and lovely, but there were still moments when I was like 'okay, can that supervising lady doctor take over because I am not convinced you've ever seen thread before.' And that, people, is a lesson in the power of confidence. Or at least projected confidence. Listen, I have NO IDEA how to heal people. All my faith is in you. So if you're projecting "Oh, I got this', I'll assume you've got that. Even if you're like, randomly sewing my other fingers together, I'll likely rationalize 'they are probably on some holistic wellness tip'. You can do anything. Just please don't act nervous. Because then I get nervous. And then I have an anxiety attack. Because of course I do.

I didn't realize what was happening at first. I assumed it was a reaction to the numbing medication, despite the fact that I've never had a reaction to medication in my entire life**, despite the fact I recognized these feelings: the nauseau, the sudden cold sweating, the impending swoon. "Is it normal if I feel like I have to throw up?" I asked, trying to ignore the big green globby gumdrops dancing across my field of vision, the gold fireworks, the descending panic. "I don't know," she said. Not the answer I was looking for. "Is it okay if I run to the bathroom for a minute?" I asked, because that seemed way politer than ralphing in the trash can behind her. "I don't know. Let me check." Also, not the answer I sought, but I heard her supervisor say 'of course' from the other side of the curtain and I took off down the hall. Of course, this was mid wound-irrigation, so I took off trailing bloody water down my arm and onto the floor, every single event another weepy, diluted version of an emergency.

I was fine, of course. I didn't even throw up, just coughed dramatically and took some deep breaths behind a locked door. Sometimes that's all you need. When I got back, they gave me water in a plastic cup marked with measurements, and the supervising doctor patted my arm and offered consolance so sweet and completely rational that I was actually offended for a minute. I'm not afraid of pain, I'm not afraid of needles, nothing scares me less than my own blood, I'm the toughest. Then the student doctor got to work tentatively shoving a curved instrument through my finger and it all happened again. This time I just sweat in silence and fended off the swoon, and fifteen minutes later I had Frankenstein tracks curling towards my palm, compliments on my nail polish, and permission to leave. Try to leave, anyway.

I could not get out of the fucking hospital. None of the exits took me to a reasonable point of departure. I wanted a main entry, some circular drive where there might be cabs. I kept finding myself in employee parking lots. Finally, I was like 'fuck it' and decided to make my way to the road through the parking lot. It looked like those edges met. Of course, they did not. The parking lot was about four feet below grade, getting up would require a hoist and a scrape, actions I don't relish, even without a busted hand. But it snowed on Monday, and it's been cold, so like a frozen ladder from heaven - there was a snowbank, exactly the height of the sidewalk. Perfection.

I'm from New England, so I've essentially been climbing snowbanks since I could wear a snowsuit. Even if you hate snow, climbing banks of the stuff is just fun as hell. You'd think, then, that I'd remember the particular physics of snowbanks in March, when the temperature is above freezing. Their tendency to give suddenly underneath you, like when, say, you've reached the top and are shifting your weight to your left leg so as to hop onto the sidewalk. In those circumstances, the snow beneath your left leg tends to...disappear. Your leg along with it, plunging all the way to the ground. Just your left leg, though. Your right foot will still be firmly planted on top of the snowbank, leaving your right knee somewhere around your ear. This will of course happen in full view of everyone on the street and the sidewalk, including the small horde of people waiting to cross the intersection. In that moment, you may make a few choked sobbing sounds before you begin to laugh uncontrollably, wriggle yourself out of the hole in the snow, belly-crawl onto the sidewalk, and hide behind a bush to finish laughing and wipe the snow off your tights. That's what I did, anyway.

And it was then, half-concealed behind some shrubbery, pretending two dozen people hadn't just watched me perform impromptu frozen circus yoga, that I gave up. Okay, 2014, I get it, you've proved your point. You're tougher than me, and there's nothing I can do about it. Big deal. 2015 will be here before you know it, and I'll still be here, new battle lines and all***.

So here it is, my newest scar, down the street from the Pagan birthday slice, and right around the corner from the dish-washing wound I incurred this summer in Maine. Our last morning, I cut the side of the same stupid pinkie with a knife hidden deep in the oatmeal colored sink suds, literally an hour before we left. We drove to Kyle's parents' house and I taped it back together with some incredibly effective Star Wars band-aids I found in the medicine cabinet. That one didn't scar.

Not everything does, I suppose.



*Or Deadwood super fans, is gangrene even a thing anymore?
** My mom later confirmed it was probably a reaction to the medication.
***Also, maybe I am just fucking terrible at climbing on stuff.

Big Pissin Up In NYC*

*My dad came up with this title. Months ago. He won't stop reminding me that I haven't written 'the most important thing' yet - a post about places to pee. Anyway, the title is brilliant. So, here you go, Pops. (This is also your birthday present.) 

A significant portion of my job entails scooting around* Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn taking pictures of gorgeous old buildings. I've mentioned this. I'm led on weird micro-tours of insanely luxurious interior spaces. I get lots of reading done on the subway. I meet pseudo-and-actual celebrities in surreally intimate environs. It's pretty great. Except when I have to pee. That part can be a bit of a bummer; I have to pee all the time.

It's my own fault, because I am absolute freak about hydration. I understand that skipping one of the eight (or ten or twelve, stop counting) glasses a day won't immediately transform me into shriveled and flaking cornhusk-doll version of myself. I know that's not true But...what if it is true? (What if I turn in to a scarecrow???) It at least sounds like a slippery slope. So I drink fucking tons of water all the time. Which is fine, since bathroom access isn't usually a serious issue.

Except when it is. When I'm running around all day, and my water bottle's empty, and my bladder's full, and I am nowhere near my hotel room, and won't be for hours. Then I have to find somewhere to pee. Those times, I wish I had a George Costanza app that would tell me the closest, cleanest, accessible bathroom. Then I remember that would require me to own and operate a smartphone, and I'm all 'blech, nope', and give myself a baby high-five (right -I clap softly) for my unmatched self-reliance. I have scouted these locations on my own. You're welcome?

Starbucks:

 My boss told me that Starbucks gets a tax break for allowing complete public access to their bathrooms. The tax break may or may not be real, but the access thing certainly is. This is good, because there are approximately three Starbucks locations on every block. This is bad, because 97% of those bathrooms are full of people already hip to this. Including people in various stages of homelessness. Not judging! But if you're waiting in line for more than a few minutes, be aware than you might be waiting on someone to finish washing their armpits in the sink.

Of course, they're not all overrun with people making the best of a hygienic apocalypse. Just use your judgement: avoid Starbucks bathrooms proximate to subway stations. Or in the Village. The Christopher Street/Sheridan Square location (YEAH I KNOW THEIR FORMAL NAMES) is a fucking horror show. It's staffed by the nicest people ever - seriously, so pleasant, all of them - but the line for the bathroom, which is constantly five people deep, is like a slow-moving human conveyor belt of impending tragedy. Everyone exiting the bathroom looks like they were just forced to slaughter a childhood pet to survive a famine. Avoid.

DudeBros seem to be an antidote. DudeBros must be some sort of bathroom-dweller repellent. I get it, I also find them fairly repellent, but I'll take a minute to appreciate their contributions to my bladder relief. It doesn't matter what neighborhood  you're in, if you notice a Starbucks packed with DudeBros, just run in and use the bathroom, even if you don't have to go. They're immaculate. It's weird.

Restaurants: This is a better move, but you might have commit to a story. At least have one prepared in case someone tries to seat you. 'I'm looking for someone' is usually enough. Then on the way out just be like 'Sorry, guess they aren't here! I even looked in the bathroom!' and run out. The best play is to not even make eye contact with the host and walk in there like you were out having a cigarette or something and you need to wash your hands before you eat. Pick some place midrange, and it's likely no one cares about their job enough to stop you. This applies to bars, too - I'm just too likely to get waylaid in a bar, it's not an efficient time-management option for me.

Large Retail Stores: 

Large retail stores are so much better than restaurants. You won't have to interact with anyone, you won't need a story. They're rarely crowded. You might get to spend some weird time in a store you'd otherwise have no use for. My personal favorite is the Babies R Us in Union Square. Why there is a two-story Babies R Us in this location, I have no idea. There's no parking. Are you going to stock up on cribs and strollers and manhandle them onto the subway? That seems awful for everyone. It does help explain why the whole store is always empty. Especially the bathroom! Sometimes you'll wander into my favorite species of human: The Confused Male, holding like, a breast pump and a mobile, just looking absolutely terrified, but don't make any sudden movements, and they won't bother you.

Whole Foods are also great for bathrooms. Except the one, interestingly, also located in Union Square. This bathroom is basically a bare toilet semi-concealed behind a Venetian blind in a rectangular room that allows way too many people inside. It's like being pee-interrogated in front of a firing squad, it's awful. But most of them aren't like that.

Note: Bathrooms in large bookstores are basically the same as a Starbucks bathroom. There's always weird puddles inside and somebody's lost grandpa is standing by the door trying to figure out how to drink out of a dirty water fountain, it's horrible, don't use those.

Hotels: So hotels are my favorite way to go, and I highly encourage you to seek out the bathroom in the lobby or ballroom and maybe get a little lost and explore in there. These bathrooms are ALWAYS the nicest, and have the best soaps and mirrors and lighting, but I implore you to MAKE SURE IT IS A HOTEL. And not a named apartment building. One afternoon this spring, I ducked into a lovely, grand old building somewhere near the 72nd Street subway station and found myself tangled in a conversation that hopped an express train to Crazy Town. When I walked in, a doorman asked me who I was there to see, as was his job. Rather than just admitting my mistake like a normal person, I MADE UP A NAME. But not a whole name, I just said "Mark". When he responded that there was more than one Mark in the building, I said "I have to make a phone call" and just ran out the door. I didn't reach for my phone or anything. Dude was legitimately trying to help me, and I created a situation where - best case scenario - he thinks he kept a Craigslist prostitute out of the building. I bet the bathrooms in that joint were amazing, though.

Portapotties:  NO HAHA JUST KIDDING NEVER.

This is a picture of the last time I used a PortAPotty for urination purposes.

That is the face of a person's whose sensibilities have been so deeply offended, she's afraid they might never recover. Honestly, I don't know if they did. Note the sadistic joy on Farid's face, as they awaited my exit. (Kyle took the picture, they'd used these filth chambers already.) I hate PortAPotties. Loathe. I find them vehemently uncivilized. I don't like peeing on top of other peoples' pee. It's disgusting to me. And I know there's no way the mix of filth below me will like, travel up my pee stream and infect my urethra but that's all I'm thinking about when I'm in there. But we were at a beer festival, it was literally a hundred degrees outside, there was nowhere else to go, and I was dying.
Next time, death is an option.

Anyway, stay hydrated! It's worth it, honestly. Your skin will look great.



*I can scoot on foot. I'm like the housekeeper from The Jetsons.

More Tales from the Tenement; Or: Your Dirtbag Beauty Editor

One of the major things I hate about extreme temperatures (yeah, this about the heat. SORRY. It's been really hot) is that it means I have to wash my stupid hair. 

Yes. That's one of my biggest complaints. Because seriously, people, I never wash my hair. By never, I mean once a week, but I sure as hell try to stretch it if I can. Like, if I know no one important's going to see me. One time I even got to TWO weeks. There was a scarf on my head the last day, sure, but it was awesome. (No offense to anyone who saw me during that second week, I'm sure you're important to someone.)

No, my parents did not raise me this way. They're normal people. Hygenically, I mean. Otherwise they're kind of bonkers, but hygenically, we had a completely normal upbringing. I only really started on this hair-care plan when I was in my mid-twenties. I'd wanted to do it before, because everyone's heard about how much better it is for your hair, but it's a pain in the ass to begin implementing (you have to ease into it) and it's sort of weird to get over the whole cultural obsession with daily or every-other-daily hair washing.

New Year's Eve 2006, my brother and I moved into our apartment on North Margin Street, in Boston's North End. The building adjacent to Pizzeria Regina's. Yes! That one. When I say that, everyone's like "Ooooh, the North End! I love the North End! You must have loved living there!" Well...yes and no.

I have joked before that we lived in a tenement. At least, everyone always takes it as a joke, but for real, the stove was the heater. Not like we opened the stove to generate heat, although that might have been more effective than the blower with High, Medium and Low settings built into the side. It's funny, in retrospect. It is also more horrifying than it was at the time, because I think we went into some kind of Survivor Mentality that allowed us to function in that space.

Case in point: the bathroom. I literally don't remember what the inside of our shower looked like, I have repressed it that hard. I also don't think I opened my eyes much. I do know that the water came out in a series of unpredictable trickles and spasms, and was never hot. It would get warm, sort of, but never hot, not once. When we moved to the East Somerville spot (which was so, so swag in comparison) I think I took like, three showers a day, just to feel hot water - MY hot water! - all over me. And due to the pre-Industrial heater situation, it was never warm in the apartment, either. None of this makes sticking your big head of hair under the faucet appealing.

Add to this: the electrical wiring situation. Again, I am not exaggerating when I say I had to go around and unplug EVERY ELECTRONIC APPLIANCE before thinking about turning the hair dryer on. And if I forgot to unplug say...the television, then all the fuses in the goddamn apartment would go. And since we were on the ground floor, in the back of the building, surrounded by taller buildings, a blown fuse meant we were plunged into total darkness. And we couldn't just go flip the fuse-switch-thingie ourselves, of course. The fusebox was in the basement which was, inexplicably, locked. So I'd have to call the landlord's son, who lived in Revere. He was actually really super nice about it, but sometimes he wouldn't get there for hours. So, have fun getting ready for work with your mostly-wet head of crazy hair! Hope your clothes match!

This did, however, lead to the creation of the greatest short film of our generation. My brother went home for lunch every day. On one such 'kk blew the fuses and Vinnie's (that was really his name, I'm not being racist) not here yet' lunches, he sent me a video message. I opened it at my desk: thirty seconds of complete darkness, total silence, and then my brother's voice: "I call this: Take A Dump In The Dark." Masterful.

All this, plus the fact that I lived five minutes from work, and was 25 and thought staying up until 3:00 was still totally normal...washing my hair, and the subsequent drying endeavor (I do not have a wash-n-wear situation) became fucking arduous. Like, too much could go wrong. So I cut it back.  And it actually does make your hair way healthier. You get all your natural oil production back on track, and there's way less damage from heat styling. It makes you way easier to travel with. And! Since you're only buying like, two bottles of shampoo a year, you can totally spring for the good stuff.

Or you can spend the savings on books and dresses and self tanning lotion, I don't know, it's your money. Go make yourself happy.

OMF, look at that baby washing its hair! Thank you GoogleImage! This baby is an exception to the above, and should wash its hair every day. Holy crazy cute.

Share Your SpinBrush, Whore.

(I always mean 'whore' in the good way)

Wait, so it's weird that I keep a toothbrush in my purse at all times? Everyone doesn't equip themselves with a full-time Travel Toothbrush? Other people are that certain about when they'll see their at-home toothbrush 100% of the time?

Maybe this speaks to my somewhat unstable lifestyle, but I find it's excellent social planning. No one bats a lash when you're like "Yo, can I borrow your toothpaste?", but most people are hard core weirded out when you're like 'Hey, so I'm just going to polish mes dents with your Spin Brush real quick?' (Bless the friends who are totally cool with that*.) I mean, humans do all manner of weird shit to each other with their mouths - the toothbrush seems like such an arbitrary line. A toothbrush is probably one of the cleaner things of someone else's that you can stick in your mouth.

Anyway, yeah, I do find myself wanting to brush my teeth in other people's bathrooms on the fairly regular, and no, it's not because I'm some kind of escort (I wish! If we learned anything from the 90's, it's that if you're a hooker with good oral hygenie, Richard Gere will save you in the end**) but because I have emotional problems and abhor regularity and routine and frequently find myself not-at-home when it's time to brush my teeth***.

I don't think it's that weird, or necessarily indicative of sluttiness (although I am both kind of weird and kind of slutty, I don't think there's any correlation.). But today, when my Travel Toothbrush fell out of my bag, my boss had a lot of questions about it, and it got me thinking.

Also, it had gotten separated from it's container (by which I mean 'the off-brand Ziploc bag I store it in had busted') so it was just floating around in there all raw, which is gross, but it's a pretty new purse so there's not a lot of tobacco flakes and Kashi dust littering the bottom yet. Still gross, okay. Sorry.

Anyway, Travel Toothbrushes are cool. Brush your teeth, yo! And eat your vegetables! I know I seem like a shitty person to take lifestyle advice from, but that shit is probably why I'm still alive. Also, drink water. SEE? I'm a genius.

* Like following the debased summer of 2006 when - in September - four of us realized we all thought the purple toothbrush was ours. And then were like 'We should probably just toss the purple one? Since we have worked it out.' (Word up, Spot kids!)

** And that George Costanza is mad rapey! Seriously, I'm not letting my hypothetical daughter watch Pretty Woman until she's like, twenty-eight. That movie does not prepare young girls for life. Don't trip, though, we are going to watch the shit out of Dirty Dancing. No fast forwarding through the botched abortion scene, either. That's a useful message. Wrap it up, yo!

***Which is actually like, all the time. I have the worst teeth. I look at sugar and I pop a tiny cavity.

See what I did there? Richard Gere saved you in the end!

For My Ladies, Single and Otherwise

I don't think I've made a habit of endorsing products here (though I have made some specific warnings about certain gross foods. Frozen pudding, gags and gags, ugh.) because I feel like: if you care about my opinion on something like face cream or conditioner, you'd just ask me. And since no one's like, banging down my door, I'm assuming no one cares. But today, I have to say something. I can't keep this to myself.

Holy shit, Garnier's BB Cream. Holy Shit. This stuff - it's like making the switch from pads to tampons. Your life will improve that much. Honestly, there is no reason I shouldn't look like absolute shit this week. I went out too much last weekend, and I smoked too many cigarettes, and because I'm old now I just can't stop being exhausted, and I'm probably PMSing and a whole host of other shit that should make my face look like, haggard. I keep waking up and expecting to see Heidi Fleiss in the mirror. But I don't. I look kind of fly. Because of this stuff.

I am a maddeningly inconsistent human being, but when it came to foundation, I kept things pretty regular for the last fifteen years or so*. Until last year when I was like 'I am tired of putting all this shit on my face every morning' so I went to just concealer, but then sometimes you're like 'my face looks like a pile of garbage this morning' and foundation's really good for that.

Then the other day I was reading XOJane.com (Cat Marnell is totally what I would have become had I grown up with money, so, naturally, I love her and read everything she writes. Also, she's a fabulous writer) and she was raving about this BB Cream, and her opinion's been gold in my book since I first saw her rocking these tights (look at these tights! They are the most fabulous things ever. I'm wearing them right now.) So I was like 'I'll try it'.

Holy shit. Holy shit! First of all, it smells better than foundation (it's more like a tinted moisturizer) and you can just smear it on your face and it blends in easy, and then - it actually makes your skin look better. For reals. Measurably better. After like, three days I noticed a difference, and then I was like 'maybe I'm just drunk' - and I was - but, here it is Wednesday and my skin looks fucking awesome. That's it. If you want your face to look fucking awesome when it has no earthly right to, then use this shit.

If you're a guy and you made it this far, I have a prize for you. And by prize I mean advice. Buy this shit for someone in your life**. And if they respond 'Um, why the shit did you get me face cream and hoisery?' Just be like: Woman, I am about to rock your world/make you feel like the sexiest motherfucker alive/whatever it is you say to your lady friends, because I'm betting you don't talk to them like the character that resulted when Shaft and Leon Phelps mixed their DNA. Anyway, they'll appreciate it.

*In a sort of backhanded product endorsement, that old standard was CoverGirl AquaSmooth. I've tried everything out there, and that shit is my second favorite. And it's like, $30 less expensive than the third favorite, which I don't even remember what that is I've been on CG so long.

**I don't know, probably not for Valentine's Day? I don't really know the rules for that, though.