Trending Topics - How about some tact? - [a case of the summer]

Welcome to the first REAL edition of Trending Topics.  I had a much less aggressive post planned, but something has really irked me the past two days and I felt inclined to rant about it today.

If you read my LIVE Raw thoughts from last night, you'll know that I went to the beach on Sunday and got rather red (I say "red" and not "burnt" because it doesn't hurt).  No big deal, as I've always tanned really well and the first "color" of the summer is usually red, which fades nicely into a brown.  No biggie.

Anyway, I show up to work on Monday looking rather red.  For the ENTIRE DAY I have people going to me and saying "Wow, you're red!" or "Wow, you got color!" or "Wow, you got burnt!" or "Wow, someone went to the beach!" or "Looks like you forgot to wear sunscreen!" and so on and so forth.  By lunch time, it was getting pretty annoying, but whatever.

Then AT lunch time, I had to listen to everybody make even more comments as we sat and ate.  It was pretty damn annoying, and it started getting to me and even made me pretty self conscious.  So that night, I took another shower in hopes of moving along this transition process.  I thought I'd maybe start peeling, getting rid of the red and bringing out the brown.  What ended up happening, instead, was that the heat made my skin blister and kinda wrinkle.  So I went into work today looking just as red, but now kinda blotchy and cut up.  And on top of the original people I saw -- some of whom AGAIN made comments -- I also saw several new people.  And THOSE people all seemed to make a comment.  Some, while in jest, were rather rude.  And excessive.

And, AGAIN at lunch, the topic of conversation seemed to be my color.  It honestly felt like every single person I saw brought it up, and it got me thinking:  If I had a terrible scar due to an accident, would that get mentioned?  Or if I see a fat girl, would I mention her weight?  Or if I saw a guy who was losing his hair, would I mention that?  I know those seem like unfair examples, but honestly, the extent some people went in mentioning this was crazy.  Like it wouldn't even be a topic of conversation, and somebody would just say, "Hey, look at his color."  Or the point was clearly made already, and somebody would mention it again.

So, like last night, I let these comments get the best of me and I probably just made things worse.  I went out and got a can of Solarcaine, which is an aloe spray that is supposed to alleviate sunburn.  Yet every time I use it, it just seems to burn (which is funny because my face didn't previously hurt) and it just seems to make me turn redder and redder.  And then I decided to take another shower in order to peel off the bubbly skin on my forehead.  It does seem to look a bit better (as in, not bubbly) but it is awfully red and obviously a different layer of skin than the rest of my face.  And I (foolishly) put Solarcaine on afterwards, which once again made my face super red.  I can't help but wonder if I would've been better just letting things progress as normal (like I normally would have) instead of trying to fix it.

Making matters worse, I have a wedding to go to on Saturday and I'm concerned that I'll still look all blotchy and red come that day.  And one of my friends even said to me that she doesn't think I'll be back to normal by then.  That's the sort of support system I'm working with here.  Real nice.

So now, I'm basically really stressed about looking like my normal self this weekend, and I'm self conscious about the way I DO look.  And I'm shocked (and annoyed) at how casually people go about mentioning something that can be described as a physical fault.  And surely, people who see me Tuesday evening -- knowing that I went to the beach Sunday -- couldn't possibly think that they're the first person to remark that I "look red."  So why mention it?

Rant over.  Just annoyed.