Casper the friendly blogger

Four years ago I gave up tanning; not simply artificial tanning beds, but even the lovely, glorious, and gorgeous tan that comes from enjoying the sun. Growing up on an island has plenty of advantages, but years of too much sun exposure and too little protection are not one of them. It may also have something to do with those high school years spent in the tanning bed but, but I refuse to admit that, because I might as well walk around with YES, MOTHER, YOU WERE RIGHT stamped on my forehead. I did not embrace my natural skin color quickly or even well for that matter. For what it is worth, the nickname Powder does not have any other logical explanation. I am 50% Finnish and go so far beyond white that I am quite certain I border on translucent.

However, while going cold-turkey on tanning was hard, I learned some harder lessons along the way. For starters, dermatologists are weird. Male dermatologists are weirder than weird. If I had not already identified a thesis for graduate school, exploring the psyche of dermatologists and their choice of career would border on making the assignment almost enjoyable. Another lesson is that there is no benefit to “scooping” as a skin removal compared to cutting and stitching. They both hurt like hell and leave scars that suddenly make a tan seem not all that important. The tan was SO WORTH the scars all over my body. Who is right now, huh MOM? A more painful lesson is that when biopsies come back “precancerous” and the peculiar dermatologist fails to clear all the margins, you should find out where they live and go punch them in the face. The next step will be to return to their office to get an even larger spot of your skin removed in the exact same place. Who is having fun now people? A final lesson (and subsequent PSA for the evening) was learning that any mole that appears after the age of 25 is deemed highly-suspicious and must be removed. Apparently new moles do not appear after the age of 25 and might as well RSVP to the party with Melanoma as their guest. Since I’ve been plagued with moles who must breed while I sleep, I get the lovely task of keeping track of them via photography. Yes, I have that many moles, I cannot even identify new ones without comparing pictures. Yes, I realize if I am ever destitute I could probably sell the photographs on ebay.

I tell you that so you can understand that I faced quite a conundrum with the imminent arrival of a wedding on April 24th. A wedding that I am going to be in. A wedding that requires me to wear a salmon-ish / pink colored dress. A gorgeous J. Crew dress that only an imbecile would pick out for someone of my complexion; pink undertones only accentuate the albino look thankyouverymuch. Since this is the internet, I don’t have to tell you that the imbecile might be someone whose name starts with an Lynd and ends with a say, do I? Oh, good, because I would feel quite stupid if you knew I did such a thing.



After much soul searching, I determined that maintaining my albino complexion in this dress just was not a viable option. With an equal amount of determination, I also rejected the thought of stepping foot into another tanning bad. So, I took the only other possible route …

…to be continued …