Return of the Lizard Lady

My face is falling off.

In chunks.

All over my desk, and the floor, and the front of my sweater. If I were eating right now, there would probably be face in my food.

My face is falling off due to my latest ploy to outsmart my acne. No... not acne, because I've graduated from acne. According to my dermatologist, because I'm an adult now (what! when??! no one asked me! it's a conspiracy! first I am too old for Urban Outfitters, now I am too old for acne!?), I don't have acne -- I have rosacea. OOOoooh, rozaaaayshaaahhhh. Doesn't it sound fancy and pretty? Don't you want to name your firstborn daughter Rosacea? DON'T DO IT. Because she will just be a big, dumb pimple with a pretty name.

Anyway, in an effort to trick my rozaaaaayshaaahhhhh into going away, I got a chemical peel on my face. I thought, "Hey! If I have someone peel my face off, maybe that will trick my pimples into thinking my face is gone for good. And then they will pack up their sebum and skedaddle off to a more appropriate, more pubescent home!" So I got this peel, which involved rubbing battery acid on my face. Which felt... burny. A lot burny. Except I didn't want to seem like a total sally to the lady inflicting the torture, so when she asked "how burny on a scale of 1 - 10" (8 point 5), I said, "Oh, a 4 or a 5" and also "THANK YOU SIR, MAY I HAVE ANOTHER!" Because, see how tough I am?

And now my face is falling off, and I look very much like a leper. But I'm trying not to let it bother me, because hopefully looking mildly diseased for a few days will be a small price to pay for (eventual) clear skin. Not that I am holding my breath. Because I've had crap skin for nigh on 15 years, and nothing has worked so far. Not taking vitamins, or drinking 40 gallons of water a day, or smearing toothpaste on my face, or antibiotics, or prayer, or Proactiv, or Noxema, or Clearasil, or changing birth control pills, or hating people with clear skin.

And, in fact, I lost my face once before. In junior high, my doctor put me on Retin-A. This caused my entire face to flake and peel pretty much constantly. And because I was in junior high and totally stupid, I took my flakey, peely face on my church youth group's water skiing trip. Which was crazytown, because Retin-A makes your skin really sensitive to things like sun and wind. So after a weekend of sunburn and windburn, I looked like a couple of alligators were getting busy on my face. And when the older, cooler high school boys (well, "cool" by church youth group standards) started calling me "Lizard Lady," I, in a highly uncharacteristic move for jr. high Becky, embraced it. I didn't cry or call my mom to pick me up. Whenever they called me Lizard Lady, I would pull my eyelids up, roll my eyes back into my head, and flick my tongue in and out of my mouth. Like... a lizard? I guess? I don't know, but apparently it made me just gross enough to be awesome.

So if you see me in the next couple days, just be all, "What's up Lizard Lady?" and I'll make my lizard face for you. And then we can hold hands around the campfire and sing songs about Jesus and cry for all of our friends who aren't Saved, and it'll be just like old times.