The good old days weren't always good, or, I am sure one day I will look back on these years with nostalgia

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KmUwVA3BqI

Anyone else who has posted the above 30 rock clip in their blog has done so to talk about what a hottie Jon Hamm is. Well not me. I am posting about Oswald. Because I HAVE Oswald in my building. I didn't know that was like, a thing, in New York. But it must be. If you don't watch the clip and didn't see the episode, basically Liz Lemon goes to give her neighbor his mail and a crazy guy answers the door. And then they explain that it's Oswald who lives in the basement and helps out sometimes.

Well, picture Oswald...but make him black, mute, and an alcoholic and make Liz Lemon's fancy tv writer's building into a dumper social worker's building and then you have my apartment and the guy from this post who lives in my basement and sometimes washes the window in the door.

I don't know his name, so in my head I usually call him Chris because sometimes he wears a Dickies-type work short with Chris sewn on, even though I am pretty sure it came from the garbage. Maybe I will switch it to Oswald.

One time I saw him stabbing a caged rat with what appeared to be a sharpened stick. True story.

Measles Mumps Rubella

Here is a picture of measles:



Wikipedia says this is a picture of a kid with mumps. I suspect it is just an Augustus Gloop kid. Regardless, notice the swollen cheeks.


This is a picture of Rubella.



After the oil cleansing method's massive failure I decided to get back on some kind of acne medication. This was an extensive 2 months-long ordeal involving the insurance company and 2 stupid doctors and a bunch of frustration, until I finally went and saw a dermatologist that I liked. He prescribed me Retin-A and some other stuff.

The derm said that about 25% of people get worse before they get better but to "stick with it!!" I believe he may have been disingenuous about that figure, or I fall into the 25%. But basically, Retin-A was like, "Oh, what? You were self-conscious and upset about your face? Hm? You bail all the time on plans because you don't like to go out in public. Oh, well fuck you. Here, let me make you look like you went to get the MMR vaccine but it went horribly, horribly wrong and mutilated your face." For like 4 days my face just got worse and worse. The bottom of my face was all swollen up like Mumps up there. I will spare you the details of some of the nasty bumps, but it was a bad, measeley, pussy scene. And then it got red all over and hot and rubellaed. And also really hurt a lot. And also peeled and was flaky on top of the symptoms of MMR. Pretty awesome. This was all while I was home over Christmas...so the plus side is that I at least didn't have to come to work with my deformity. The negative was that my family, who I only see twice a year, now has to live for the next 6 months with their last memory of me looking like every Proactiv before image layered on top of each other.
It is now pretty much back to what it looked like when I went to the dermatologist and itches. Woo progress.

Anyway, supposedly my skin is gonna look sogood once it gets better. Fingers crossed, otherwise I am probably going to have to get a face transplant. I have decided that this is either a lesson on how to love myself from the inside, or punishment for every bitchy thing I have ever said about another girl.

My regime? The regime from which the radicals are trying to get free?

Throughout my adolescence I had pretty decent skin with not a lot of problems...maybe a breakout around the lady time, but not too much else.
Then, on the day of graduation when we had the all-night party that they always have I started to feel a huge cystic pimple on my chin. That single cystic pimple marked the beginning of the end of my manageable skin and that summer I developed the first of many bouts with acne and went on acne medication for the first time.
The skin issues come and go depending on hormones, weather, stress, diet, etc. Currently, I am in the middle of a bad spell with the skin. Not the worst it's ever been, but enough to make me feel pretty gross.
To make it worse I was sick last week - that, combined with the stress of the new job and lame living situation, has caused me to break out in herp of the mouth.
Once, when I was 8 and my sister was 6 we went to Papa's Pizza (the place to see and be seen on a Friday night for elementary schoolers in Eugene, Oregon in 1990). We ran into a kid from my sister's class, Andy. He is actually like some physics genius now, but unfortunately I don't remember his last name. This is because, on that Friday night in 1990 when we ran into him in the play room at Papa's, he had apparently finished his pizza dinner and neglected to thoroughly wipe his mouth. He had pizza sauce smeared at the corner of his mouth. My sister and I ran around and called him Andy Pizza Face....and not just for that night. Oh no. Recently my sister sent me a link to something about some crazy science thing he had done at Harvard. "Oh look!" We exclaimed. "Andy Pizza Face is up for a nobel prize!"
My herp of the mouth makes me look like Andy Pizza Face. But without the credentials.
So in my neverending quest to find a solution for my skin, I am now trying the Oil Cleansing Method.
Check out the link if you wanna, but this is basically it: Wash your face with oil.
People swear by it. People who say they have never had any luck with anything else claim this solved everything.
Here's the downside, apparently your skin goes through a "purging process" as it gets rid of all this shit that has built up, so it gets worse before it gets better. I'm not really looking forward to this. And there is no way of knowing really if it's purging and will get better, or if you have just fated yourself to Edward James Olmos territory.
So, today was day 1. I made my little mixture. Steamed my face. Washed it off. Followed up with some Tea tree oil on the existing problems.
My favorite part is that you are supposed to think relaxing and positive thoughts about your skin getting clear. The Secret + OCM!.
I also really like that it's natural because every once in awhile I get all hippie and decide I need to put less toxins in my body.
My second favorite part is that you are supposed to massage it in until you feel little granules, which are sebum plugs coming to the surface. It's so nasty, I love it.
Anyway, I am willing to give it a month and we'll see. One thing I read said several months, but fuck that, I would rather go to the dermatologist and have them look at me disapprovingly while admonishing me for being a skin picker.
In the meantime, I will take solace in the fact that at least for the next month, every day, I will get to be conscious of sebum plugs. Assuming I don't get bored of the whole thing, which is kind of a process and likely to become tiresome.

Dating Disaster #4: You Won't Last Too Long On Broadway

So this dating disaster was yet another CL find. I had responded to what I thought was kind of a witty ad about words or something equally nerdy. I talked to Jeff on the IM a few times, and he seemed ok. However, he did offer to take me on a trip, which is always weird. I don't know what the deal is with dudes I don't know inviting me on trips. Anyway we had plans to go on a date, but he had to cancel because he had to be on call that day for Law and Order.
Oh yes, this craigslist gem was an actor. He has been on L&O 3 times, which he was sure to remind me about several times. He was quite wounded when I pointed out that everyone in NY has been on L&O -- seriously, one of the social workers at my agency has been on it 3 times.
Anyway, then he had to bail another time, I don't remember why. And then we canceled another time, I think that time it was me. Anyway, I was over it. And then I decided to go on a break from dating, probably because of some other dating disaster.
So then flash forward a month and I am out with a friend gettin' my drank on and I've had a few and we're at WhiteCastle, you know, I get an IM from him on my phone. So I'm all rum and dieted/onion ringed up and I decide that he and I should meet at a bar across the street from my apartment.
And he's a little bit over-anxious. Like I had already seen his pic (headshot. for ser), and he texted me to let me know what he would be wearing. But then he texted me later to let me know that he had changed his mind as was wearing a green shirt. That kind of anxious.
But he shows up at the bar and pays for my drinks, which is a small gesture I always appreciate. And we're talking and having a good enough time as I recall. No idea what we talked about, but he must have been doing all right because I invited him back to my place.
We get back to my place and I go into the bathroom and I come out to find that he has discovered the grand piano in my roommate's room.
"Can I play you something? I was in four broadway musicals, you know."
ugh.
But apparently even that wasn't enough to deter me, because we end up in my room. And we're about to be having sex and he says,
"You're not too drunk are you?"
"No. Why? Are you worried about my ability to give consent"
"No. I just want you to remember how good this is going to be"
At this point, with his dick actually inside me, I laughed in his face.
"What?"
"Um, I can't belive you just said that."
"What? Why?"
"Never mind. Let's just do this"

Note: Sometimes I think people miss part of what is the most hilarious about this anecdote. Because not only was it a ridiculous thing to say. But I was genuinely, earnestly thinking he was worried about gray rape. But no.

So was the sex worth being sober for? Of course not. And it was one of those times where you're just waiting for the dude to finish up cuz the alcohol's wearing off and you're starting to get a headache and you kind of just want to get some water and some advil and hope he doesn't try to cuddle.

However, there were a few memorable parts. As I was running my hands through his hair...I noticed what appeared to be...sewn in hair. Like, I'm not familiar with hair solutions for men....were they hair plugs? A wig? I don't know, but it was like trying to run your hands through the hair of a cheaply made doll.

I noticed also....moles. But I wrote it off and passed out.

First thing I notice in the morning though was those fucking moles. So friends who I have told this to who have a few moles have seemed a little concerned, like perhaps I think they are disgusting. And no. These were not those kind of moles. These were like, yo you wanna get yourself to a dermatologist because I am pretty sure I see these motherfuckers changing size and shape in front of me. Full on pre-cancerous melanomas. All. Over. Everwhere. Face, neck, chest. Sick. I was seriously nauseous.

And of course, he wants to have the morning sex. See And She Was for a description of why morning sex is distasteful. But basically I don't understand why the morning sex after what is doomed to become a one-night stand. I know there is this whole sterotype of women who prefer that men stay over and cuddle (see: When Harry Met Sally), but this is one area where I am firmly dude. Unless I like you, I don't want to cuddle with you. But, obviously this guy didn't get that. Seriously, in mid-thrust at one point in the night (which is where his best conversation took place) he was like, um, so we need to go out again, because I don't usually do this. Ummm.
Anyway, this dude was all trying to kiss on me, and it was a toss-up between giving in and pushing him out of the bed because either way I would have to touch his sick moles. But giving in could possibly mean also having to touch his sewn-in hair, so I got out of bed.
I had to force him out after he tried to invite me on a weekend trip with his friends. Seriously. It happens all the time.

Of course he texted me a couple of times after that. And of course I did not reply. Then, predictably he did the check-in call, which we all know I hate. "Heeeyy Caitlin...iiitt's Jeff....I texted you a couple tiiimes. Maybe you didn't get theeemm?....umm...but, I thought we had a good time? Aaaanyway...call me back". Pathetic. And that was the end of The Actor.