don't itch, it'll scar
February 10, 2004, 9:22 pm

Two days ago, I noticed a small pimple on my arm. Not a big deal, I thought, People get pimples on their skin all the time.

Yesterday I woke up to find that my arm pimple had two friends alongside it. Well,I thought, better use a better body wash.

This morning when I woke up, I found about a baker's dozen tiny, PAINFUL pimples lining my left arm, my right arm, and several along my stomach and chest. Mmmm, I mused, better see the doctor.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the wonderful world of folliculitis! Stancovet gives folliculitis TWO THUMBS WAY UP! "You're in for a wild ride!" he said, chortling into the phone as he described a particularly crazy regimen of neck-to-toe cream intended to spirit away unwanted follicular infection. Thankfully, I'm on the mouth antibiotic.

The best way I can describe the tiny sacs of green goodness oozing on my skin would be to have you imagine ninth grade and getting a huge, so-painful-you-can-feel-it-forming-beneath-layers-of-your-skin zit on your chin three days before Homecoming. Now imagine that all over your arms.

I don't know how this happened. I'm very anti-bacterial. I use many bath products including but not limited to: salt scrub, ginger sugar exfoliator, loofahs, basil body wash, and Dove soap. I'm clean, seriously. The doc seems to think that my roaming hands are spreading the bacteria across my body; hence the left arm getting it good and the rest of the body getting it in smaller doses. I have another appointment on Thursday to rule out (get ready) CHICKEN POX. That's right, CHICKEN POX. Folks, I had the chicken pox in the fucking first GRADE.

I spent an entire week at home in the first grade; it was Valentine's Day, and all of my valentines were hand-delivered by my buddy, Cort, along with a stack of letters from my classmates that read in carefully penned 1st grader print:

Dear Jessica,

Cort told us that you had the chicken pox. I hope you feel better soon.

Love,

(insert name here)

Of course, my favorites were from Cort himself, who opted to write in the third person, and from Phil M., my elementary school crush. I remember sucking on a lime lollipop, bemoaning my misfortune at missing the Valentine's Day celebration and decorating my paper bag that would hold my store-bought cookies, candy, and valentines.

Here I am, exactly twenty years later, complaining that this Valentine's Day I'll be sitting at home with the chicken pox, staring at an empty paper bag with a hopeful construction paper red heart, a doily, and my name on it.