Stinky McDirtPants

I have to hope that this is neither a local nor an individual happenstance: the inverse proportion between writing and cleanliness. Anyone?

Since the dawn of our spring break (which, for me, started on Thursday), I've been frantically working on an article due at the end of the month. To complicate matters, I've got a co-author, so the work entails a combination of individual writing and research, swapping of drafts, meeting to reorganize and restructure, more writing and researching, etc., etc. There's much to be said about weighing the advantages and disadvantages of co-writing; I'll save that for another post. For right now, let's just say that it's convenient that the two of us live close to each other, and that we're both apparently more and more forgiving about what she calls the "slippery slope of personal hygiene."

Honestly, I just don't get it. I LOVE to shower. I love to be clean!! Despite the previous post about the difficulties of scheduling hair washing, or perhaps BECAUSE of the difficulties, I tend to obsess about bathing. And yet, this "break" finds me in serious disarray. What is it about the process of writing that makes me avoid the shower? Is it punishment? Is it held out as a reward? Is it that I subconsciously believe that my funkiness will incubate any good ideas that I have?

In truth, my guess is that it's the schedule. The past few days have looked like this:

• drink coffee
• revise section or read relevant source material
  
• get up
• call co-author and decide on tasks
• write til lunch
• make lunch and eat
• call co-author and check in
• meet with CA and/or write more
• if the sun isn't down, get some exercise, or at least get off the couch, wherein I have been making quite an ass groove for myself

You see the problem here, right? Where do you fit a shower in there? At least going to the gym necessitates cleanliness, but by the time I workout and and eat dinner, it's 9, and all I want to do is lay supine and have television signals beamed directly into my brain.

You'll be happy to know that this assault on world hygiene ends today; Senor F and I are on our way out of town for a brief break. Solely for the good people of Gotham will I make sure that I cleanse myself daily. My skin won't know what to do with itself. If you hear "I'm melting, I'm melting!" you'll know who it's coming from.

I've Got Your Oil Crisis Right Here

I know that there are far more important things happening in the world, but this is the one that gets to me on a daily basis: oily hair.

Here's the situation: I need a haircut, and I keep putting itoff because it requires a conversation with the fetus, and making an appointment and going down there, etc., etc. All things I dread. In the meantime, however, my hair is ridiculously long. As in, I just saw the department secretary the other day and she said: "Wow! Your hair got really long!!" Right, thanks. Give me some letterhead.

So the hair is too long, and I'm putting off doing something about that. Meanwhile, the hair is, and has always been, ridiculously thick. Like, perhaps thinning is not such a bad idea. Like, when I was in high school I shaved the back of my head and still had plenty of hair to cover it up (and in many ways, that was one of the best haircuts I ever had, except that it was a bitch to grow out).
But thick hair and overly-long hair means only one thing: way way too much time to dry it in the morning. As in, dryer arm goes numb and shoulder aches, too much time. As in, dryer begins to overheat, too much time. As in, gee, I could either prep my class OR I could dry my hair this
morning.

No problem, right? Just don't wash it every day! Right, except that, well, you remember Exxon-Valdez? Ducks and waterfowl and sea creatures slicked in oil and struggling for life? That's pretty much the state of my scalp after 36 hours. So I've been experimenting with that window, but it's a tricky one. If I shower late in the day before one evening class, I can just about make it through the next evening before the inevitable moment when I run my hands through my hair and leave tracks. The better option here is either to pull it back or enter the wide world of hair accessories, but both seem troubling. A bit like the moment when you cover an enormous zit with concealer, and thus make it even more visible. From space. Look over here!! I'm accessorizing my incredibly greasy head!!

So what I really want to know is this: has anybody tried this stuff?

Hair powder? Really? Am I intrigued just because Bumble and Bumble make it? Is it really some sort of bizarre throwback to Versailles? Next thing you know I'll be wearing a wig and telling people to eat cake?

Thoughts, advice, mockery are all accepted here.

Afflicted, Part 2

Okay, god knows y'all (shout out to Paula Deen!) have heard enough whining here nowadays. "I don't want to write!" "I have the plague!" I'll try to rein it in forthwith. Since there's so little out on the net about the experience of pityriasis, however, I wanted to document the down and dirty (or down and spotty?) day-to-dayness of it. Warning: graphic descriptions ahead!

As of tomorrow, it will be three weeks since my symptoms first presented. Yesterday was my first day without significant itching---quite a relief. According to the numerous websites, a small minority of people experience the itching; most people just get the spots. Well, in most people the spots only occur on the trunk, but I've got them in significant quantities on the insides of my thighs (yummy. I'm sure there's a porn fetish in there somewhere), a few on the back of my knees and the insides of my elbows. The spots and the itching are also worse (more red, more inflamed, more prone to make me want to use a cheese grater to scratch) on my bathing suit parts. Extra points if you've figured out the common denominator here. My theory is that it's all the body parts that get hot and sweaty (I don't have necessarily super sweaty boobs, you understand. But 90 degree heat plus bra plus shirt=more warm than other places with a single layer). The upside to all of this is that people really stay away from you when you're scratching your crotch all the time. So good for us introverts.

There was a brief and shining moment just before week two when I thought I was in the clear; the spots had flattened out and started to peel (charming to look at, but certainly less itchy). That was when the second string appeared---all over my back and butt. Round two of scratching, except this time it was hard to reach. And sitting--say, in front of a computer--was no fun, as it aggravated the field of bumps on my ass. So, lots of laying on the stomach in front of the laptop.

I don't think it's unusual to have the second round of bumps, it's just depressing. I may have aggravated it in one of two ways: it was, for a few days, wretchedly hot and humid here. That could have set off the symptoms. I also caved in and went to the gym. Twice. It's probably not a coincidence that the most resilient itchy bumps are in the channel between my shoulder blades (you know, where you sweat).

Should this ever befall you (and if I had had a choice, I'd have gone with the locusts or the river of blood, for sure), a couple of cautions and suggestions. What I have done this past week is take doses of evening primrose oil, which has a compound that's good for skin. I read about that in Andrew Weil's column, and thought "what the hell?" It may be coincidence that the leprosy has dried up since I've been taking it, but there may be a connection. If at all possible, I'd avoid the heat and any kind of friction you can. I've never spent so much time without underwear on, but it was an absolute necessity. If I could have conquered my prudery and gone to work that way, I would have been more comfortable. One might also want to warn one's roommates and spouses that being itchy all the time makes one cranky. (Note the use of the third person here.) One might also want to warn one's spouse that no matter how cool he might think being called "Leopard Woman" is, it is definitively not.

So there you have it, folks. The anatomy of a skin condition. I'll let you know when it's totally disappeared, but all praise the gods Cortisone and Anti-histamine for their non-itch benevolence.

Afflicted

The good news is that I can still eat Chinese food---I'm not having an allergic outbreak of hives because of something weird in the Buddhist Delight. The bad news? It's not hives. How I wish it were hives. Hives can be cured with a short burst of steroids and a strict avoidance of the trigger allergen. Other than the fear of developing a resemblance to the East German women's swim team, it's a pretty quick fix. What I have, on the other hand, something called pityriasis, likes to linger. It hangs around for, say, 4-16 weeks. You heard me. Between 1 and 4 months. But, the doctor tells me, all chipper, it goes away by itself! There's no cure! Try not to scratch and make it infected! I guess you won't be wearing a bikini anytime soon! [Slim chance of that, but definitely not now.] Try not to get overheated! [Um. Summer. Northeast. 1930's house, no air conditioning?]

If this isn't the cosmic kick in the head that I've been anticipating, I'm not sure what is. It's all part of a larger pattern, really. Not a pattern of periodic medical grossness, although I do have a charming history of that. Rather, it's a pattern wherein I push myself too far for too long, and then have some sort of major bodily malfunction. I get the impression that for most people, when they work too hard, get too stressed, don't sleep enough--essentially do all of those things that shred one's immunities---they get sick. Immediately. And that's the cue to slow down. It's never worked like that for me: I've almost always been able to push through til the end of the task, semester, etc., but then I get hit with the big whammy. In college, it was like clockwork. I'd spend the last month of the semester eating coffee grounds and writing papers all night, I'd turn everything in, drive home for break, and by the next morning I was sick. The best time was when I had worked my ass off on a 35 page paper on Kristeva and Tristram Shandy (because that's just the kind of little prat that I was), made it the 4 hour drive home and ended up with a 104 degree fever. Boiled my brain better than Revolution in Poetic Language, that did.

So clearly I've learned nothing in the last 10 years. I still think that I can drive myself past all reasonable limits and it will be okay. Sure! Why not teach a full semester, be an administrator, run a speakers' series, give a conference paper, teach an intensive summer class, go to a workshop in the Midwest. You can work for six months without a break! What's the worst that could happen?

For the next 1-4 months, I 'll look like a leper, but only underneath my clothes, which is one small saving grace. Very small. Pityriasis is apparently also common in dogs and bears. Do you think they push themselves too hard too?