Muses

He stole my nose and I’ve been looking in the mirror ever since.

House painters are nice folks. Mostly quiet, though sometimes extroverted like the painter we now have paint our things that need painting.

Back when this event took place, the painter in question must have been a real jokester.

He stole my nose.

You know. Someone grabs at your nose with their hand. They snicker and shout, “Got your nose” and show you their fist as their thumb pokes through the index and middle finger.

Ha. Ha. Sure it’s funny till a painter pulls that trick on a wee two year old in 1965 and she thinks the d@mn idiot has pulled the nose off her face.

Today I had an appointment to have a basal cell carcinoma carved off that same nose.

Yes, one slip of the knife and this doctor could finish off what that painter tried to do all those years ago.

No. It wasn’t that bad. Just a spot. But it involved taking a skin graft and stitches and reclining in a chair looking a virtual reef-like fish tank broadcast on a big screen. I guess to help me forget someone-trying-to-swipe-my-nose flashbacks. 

You know what kept going through my head? (Other than that long ago machiavellian painter.)

This hurts.

I’ve got a hole in the side of my nose and a hole scraped on the inside of my outer ear.

Lying there trying to make sense of the whole thing, I pulled out a scale in my mind.

On one side I put pain, stitches and a scarred nose. On the other side sat all those times at the beach. Lying in the sun. Listening to WAPE AM on tiny transistor radio tucked beside my ear. Trying to get as burned as I could.

Yes. That was my mission in high school. Go to the beach. Not wear sunscreen and be able to go to school on Monday looking as a cherry Tootsie Pop sticking out of a white t-shirt.

Post procedure I’ve got a big paper mache muppet nose bandage. Same feeling as when I had the biopsy and tweeted this a few weeks ago.

 

 

I have complete confidence in my doctor. Though I haven’t taken my bandages off yet.

Would I have traded all those years in the sun for perfect skin now?

I’ll plead the 5th.

And get to your dermatologist to check out any odd spots.

Miss chatting with you regularly but still getting those 500 words in.

xoxo

           

           

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