I'm sure it has been made quite obvious by now that I am located in Southern California. Though I wasn't born here (the state of Texas possesses that honor), I was raised here. All over Southern California. Weekends in Santa Barbara, Saturday nights in Santa Monica, etc. You know the rest. You're aware then, I'm sure, that Southern California is home to the city that bore impossible standards of beauty: Los Angeles, or more appropriately Hollywood. The reason I mention this is that the standards of beauty I've grown up with are almost impossible. Here we are, the young women of Generation Y and unlike the women before us whose mothers burned their bras and would die before applying a stitch of mascara, our mothers had blush painted up to their hair lines and lip gloss in big sticks applied like Magic Markers. Where does that leave us? Trying to look as naturally beautiful as possible with the help of all conceivable products available at the nearest Sephora. Long black eyelashes, fleshy pink lips, and most importantly a glowing complexion that is tan tan tan. What makes this an opportune time to reach a very low low? Well, while trying to achieve a tan one can encounter any number of problems:
1. Skin like leather in ten years or less.
2. Cancer. Enough said.
3. Sunburns that hurt worse than scalding hot water.
Side effect number three is the affliction from which I am currently suffering. In fact, I think maybe "suffering" may be too tame a word for what I'm going through. My skin is hot pink and feels as though it is being simultaneously stretched out and stabbed with needles. Here I am slathering myself with Aloe and Cocoa Butter thinking "if only I could achieve normality again." My skin is screaming at me "Why? WHY? Why!?" and I wish I had an intelligent answer for it, but the best I can do is shrug (even if it does cause a momentous amount of pain to do so) and say...
That's California, baby.
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