Scrubbed, Sucked, Burned – And This Time, Russell Brand Is Not Involved

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I’m back. 

The Groupon was $55.00, and offered a skin consultation, a mask, and my choice of microdermabrasion or a glycolic peel.  The full value was close to $300.00, and I expected to tip at least $50.00, so total expense was $105.00.

The place was a former superintendent’s apartment in a fancy co-op building on Central Park West.  It was furnished as such – very warm and welcoming, with real artwork and comfy chairs.  This relieved me, because I anticipated cold sterility in the décor, and that would have applied to the customers as well.  Why are some of these places so guy-hostile?  We have pores too!  Stevie Wonder’s Send One Your Love was on the stereo.  Nice!

I settled in to wait, but I was the only one there.

The “doctor” who saw me was not a dermatologist – I’ve never seen a ruffled lab coat, but she had one.  She looked like Colbie Callait, who I love, but then I worried a bit that maybe she smoked pot.  (I think that if Colbie and Jack Johnson shared a bong, the cloud would be so thick that LA would have a blizzard in July.)

Dr. Colbie’s catlike eyes assessed me as she asked if I smoked, drank, and got enough rest. (No, HELL YEAH, No.)   Vell, she said in her Russian accent, there’s a lot we can do to feex you up.

And she did!  After a thorough cleansing that made every pore feel like it contained a French Gypsy,  she started with the microdermabrasion.  She decided this for me, because the fact of the matter was she thought I needed both.  The only thing with the microdermabrasion was that some of the stuff got on my teeth and it sure is gritty.  Otherwise it was just like having a vacuum suck out your pores.  Then she put on a glycolic solution, followed by a glycolic moisturizer. Eet vill steeng, Dr. Colbie told me. This was held in place by some gauzy pads.  She left and shut out the lights.  I wanted to fake-yell Get it off! Get it off it burns like FIYAAAA! but it seemed like Dr. Colbie didn’t really have a sense of humor.

Alone in the dark with my face a-blazin’, I wondered if I’d look like Samantha from that episode of SATC when she got a peel and her face looked like strawberry jam.  The music switched from Stevie Wonder to what Mike calls Black Sex Music: R. Kelly’s When A Woooooman Loves segued into a Rick James and a sista moaning Fire and Desire, which had me weeping tears of hilarious irony.  After an eon, Dr. Colbie returned.

You steenging? she wanted to know.

Not too bad. I thought I could sense her disappointment through the bandage.  She removed them, got me cleaned up, and showed me a mirror.

Pink.  I was pinker than icing on Julia Allison’s cupcake.  But it was a very clean pink.  There was a residual tingle.  When she left the room, I replaced the mirror on the shelf next to books, and being a nosy parker, I had a peek at the titles.  What Spas Do Wrong, Upselling!, Marketing Spa Products.

She obviously had memorized every one, because she gave me the hard sell on a glycolic night cream.  I paid $40.00, and later found out that it retails for $28.50!  But it did get very, very good reviews online.  Whatevs.  She told me how to use it, so I guess that’s worth something.

I would go back, but I would NOT pay $300.00 + tip even though I know that’s going rate.  My skin feels smooth, and looks (pinkly) terrific.  Random note – on the way back, THREE random strangers either said hello or chat me up in the subway and the elevator.

So! Those of you with ladyflowers – your real problem is makeup, if you wear it, and your skin is thinner than mine.  Pick one or the other, but don’t go for the double whammy.

Gentlemen – your problem is that you don’t exfoliate at all, ever, and those of you who do don’t do it often enough.  Your mug is probably home to a few blackheads and dry patches.  Get rid of them.  When you go a-male bonding, tell the guys at The Swarthy Salty Sea Succubus that it’s so you don’t cut yourself when shaving your manly man beard.

Life Science

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Whenever I tell people I’m interested in biological research, I nearly always hear, “Oh, are you going to cure cancer?” There is a winking intonation in this question. We won’t hold you to it, they say with their friendly smiles. I either respond with my easy refrain – “I’m more interested in function than health” – or a laugh and a shrug that drips with faux-modesty. That mantra ignores, of course, that understanding of function leads to technology.

These days, the vast majority of biological research is designed to create product. A cancer drug, an anti-aging technique, a soybean resistant to disease. Why? Because research is expensive – wildly so. No corporation will waste billions on research without an eye toward application. It reminds me of a creation of Margaret Atwood: Crake, a genius whose pragmatism is beyond the reach of empathy towards individuals. “Grief in the face of inevitable death. The wish to stop time. The human condition.” This is what biotech sells. Only the rich can afford it. The rest of humanity is left praying for a trickle down, decades after initial production – AIDS drugs, vaccinations. Voodoo medicine.

“Oh, are you going to cure cancer?” When I was in high school – long before I had much in the way of scientific predilection – I volunteered quite a bit. I spent some time with an organization that worked with pediatric oncology patients and their families. I played with kids before and during their chemo – puzzles, block games, cards. Exhausted parents would thank me as other volunteers whisked them away to ask how they were holding up.

While with the kids, I usually forgot everything, but every once in a while something would jolt me back. A needle bruise on a tiny arm, tear tracks on a mother’s face, a spot of blood from a bloody nose on a pair of light-up sneakers that could fit in my hand. The phone calls telling me my scheduled visit would no longer be needed. I would leave and sit in my car in the parking lot, slumped with exhaustion. I still remember the numbing tingle on my hands from where the steering wheel stitching dug in.

“Oh, are you going to cure cancer?”

Lunchtime Poll

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So, this is what’s called a lunchtime poll.

You inherit 5 million dollars the same day aliens land on the earth and say they’re going to blow it up in 2 days. What do you do?

There are no stupid questions. Except for this one.

A Crasstalk Group Has Been Started

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So far, I’ve included the people with commenting accounts here who I am friends with on FB. Ponies! and EBone. Right now it’s an open group so I don’t have to approve everyone who wants to join, but once it gets big enough, maybe we should close it down? Booboo, when you join, I’ll make you the admin so you can run the FB front of Crasstalk, if you want. However, if nobody wants this, let me know and I’ll shut it down.

Here’s the link to the Facebook Group.

The group is just called Crasstalk. Come join and send me pictures of boobs.

French Wench off the Bench?

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Sorry kidderoos.  I know you’ve been begging us to stop talking about her, but it looks like the world’s most literal famewhore is, once again, making it impossible for us to ignore her.

A true “brags to bitches” story – whether she is  getting in fights with her co-stars, sleeping in a coffin, or loosening her corset for every wealthy or influential man around, she does seem to find a way to stay in the news.   Although we have to give her some credit on this last point.  She doesn’t just “socialize” with the independently wealthy, she’s been known to “move the brush” for a hipster painter or two and serve as a muse for those that are particularly handy with a “pen”.  (Things aren’t so Misérables anymore are they?!)

But pretty (and flexible) finally seems to have paid off, slightly less literally, for her.  A new strategy!  Sleeping with the theatrical purse strings! Which has finally earned her a starring role.

That’s right boys and girls.  The  child of the slums, the thief’s daughter that has stolen our eyeballs (we wouldn’t keep writing about her if you didn’t keep reading it!) if not our hearts is about to travel the world playing a Queen!

So watch out all you real Queens out there.  Your husbands might get confused and bring her home.  (At least to find out why they really say she has a “throat like a flute.”)