burn baby, burn

I need to switch sunscreens. My old faithful pink baby bottle SPF 45 has served me well. Trouble is that it's quite literally meant for babies and not adults, and as I mentioned before, it becomes Elmer's Glue once applied. It's okay when I swim but it's a bad lounging sunscreen, and the sand ends up sticking to me like...well, there's nothing to even compare it to, there's NO HUMAN THING that gets sand stuck to them in such an extreme way that they can hardly get it off without exfoliating. Yuck.

The only problem is that my old faithful pink baby bottle SPF 45 works, even in the Carribean, which is really saying something. And I can't deal with a sunscreen that doesn't work. I'm basically allergic to the sun and when I get sunburned I get the flu, or else if I don't apply four or five even layers (no, really) I get my signature selective sunburn, such as the one I have right now in a couple spots on the backs of my legs only, thanks to hours spent learning to golf at Dirty Dancing. I once had a dermatologist tell me that my complexion was meant for "overcast London skies." Very poetic, but not helping me out much around these parts.

My friends don't have this problem. If they're not golden brown then they're at least a subtle bronze, and in that perfectly lovely summery way, not in that scary Malibu Barbie orangey way. They can use spray tanners that don't glop on like mayo, the kind that make a weak claim to contain SPF 8. But because they're my friends, they don't make Casper jokes; one of the Jens once became infuriated with a Clinique saleswoman who tried to sell me a self-tanner that I didn't ask for. No, my friends will diligently slather massive amounts of my sunscreen of choice on my back and neck to protect me from absorbing even a minimal amount of vitamin D. And they put it on evenly, because none of them want to be responsible for a selective sunburn situation.

Anyway, yeah, the switch has to happen. Unfortunately, I'm also a product queen, so when I see that there's a company that makes a sunscreen promising to be "extra soft," I immediately want it. But it's not waterproof. Be rational, Red, don't get sucked in by cute labels. So I pick up a different sunscreen, another SPF 45, and I ask the pharmacy tech if it's any good. She looks at me blankly like I'm asking her to give a dissertation ranking each of the Blistex flavors. I've been going to that pharmacy for three years now and it's not like I ever ask her opinion of anything, so am I really, truly putting her out that much?

She says, "Well, I'd have to ask the pharmacist." I nod and smile; my "would you mind?" loosely translates to "yeah, go do that." She starts to walk over to him and then turns back to me. "So, you want to know how well it works as far as...?"

I don't even know how to answer this. As far as how cute the bottle will look in my bag? "How well it will keep me from getting burned?"

"Okay." She's back in three seconds. "He says it's good."

"Oh. Okay." Is there even a pharmacist back there? Did she just ask the opinion of a row of Percocet bottles? "Good" isn't enough for me to make the switch. I have a relationship with the pink baby bottle! How do I tell her this? She doesn't care. She probably steals Oxycontin.

I bought it anyway. It's less goopy than the baby stuff, but I haven't yet had the opportunity to find out if it really works. But here's hoping it's..."good."

library books smell funny, anyway

I went to the city clerk's office in the Town I Was Born In to get my birth certificate which I need to rectify with the expired passport situation. T minus 16 days till my trip, but it should be okay, unless that's the week they started profiling sunburned redheads. Anyway, I went in and asked if they need to see anything besides my license. Turns out they don't even need that; they just need you to tell them your name, or any name, really, and give them $10. Why is it that easy to get your birth certificate, and yet the library practically does a vital organ scan before they'll approve you to walk around with a library card? I'm just saying.

marshMellow

On Saturday the humidity finally broke...whee! Jen and I went to York Beach and she ended up calling her aunt who had just moved in with her boyfriend in Kennebunkport. I was happy to go visit them but not so happy that our change of plans left us with no time to visit the Fun-O-Rama next to the beach. I took a picture of it instead, and also of a car with an "I Heart Laura Ingalls Wilder" bumper sticker. Maine is a funny place.

Jen's aunt basically dropped whatever she was doing that day to hang out with us, as did her boyfriend, which was nice of him considering he didn't really know Jen and he certainly didn't know me. And because you never get a second chance to make a first impression, I made sure that I was covered in sand when I met them. At some point my sunblock had morphed into superglue, so I was pretty dirty when I got there, despite my best attempts at removal. So they let me take a shower and then I had to pick all the little pieces of sand out of their tub. Pretty ghetto, right? You have to be a special kind of dirty to actually make the bathtub dirty too. Anyway, once I was presentable, they took us out on Saco Bay on Boyfriend's boat. Aunt took pictures of Jen and I in front of a lighthouse on an island, but we were slightly precariously balanced on the edge of the boat so the pictures went like this: blurry, cute of us but off-center lighthouse, us looking a little scared as the boat pitches and we try to maintain picture pose, me forgetting to take my sunglasses off, and finally a perfect shot. I swear, I have the cutest couple shots with my girlfriends. There's one of Connecticut and I from years ago that we refer to as our engagement picture. We almost registered at Bloomingdales.

Anyway, we stayed for dinner and had yummy pepper burgers and corn on the cob. I made the fruit salad but was having so much fun with the cherry pitter that I pitted the whole bag so it was basically a cherry salad. I only missed two pits and Jen got them both. On the way home I entertained her with my own version of "would you rather" until she yelled at me for being too gross. I'm sorry, but that game NEEDS to be way dirty in order to be entertaining. Not for the faint of heart, though, I admit.

As an aside, I really miss my other Jen. She's still in Israel doing good things and helping kids and whatnot. But I want her to come back here and hang out with me at the soup factory and talk about other people. Priorities, come on.

On Sunday, Steve came over and we went to Melissa and Joe's barbecue and had a great time, as usual. I always have a good time with them, whatever we're doing. How great is it to have friends like that? And they're coming to the Cape in a couple weeks so I'm excited for that. So is my mom! She met Joe once and already decided that he needs TLC because he works too much.

Oh, and Melissa happened to mention something in passing about passports and it suddenly occured to me that I might need one that's NOT expired, unless I decide to become an illegal Mexican citizen two and a half weeks from now. I've literally known my passport expiration date for TEN YEARS and now I have to put a rush on it to make sure I have it in time for my trip. It's nice to be in control of your life, let me tell you.

I had to go over to my clinical supervisor's house today so she could sign off on my paperwork for all my certification blahblahness. She's getting married in a couple weeks and was telling me how she had her bachelorette party over the weeekend and they all went out for lunch and then painted pottery. I think I would've thrown a clay bowl against the wall and asked where the freakin' party was. But maybe that's just me.

Bush Nominates Roberts, Son Inexplicably Rocks Out

iConfusion

I like my iPod's genre menu. Is it for times when you're going to have a dinner party and you want to set a certain mood? Genre would be a good word for Zach Braff to throw around at that party. Anyway, I especially like how it gets confused about its classification system. It doesn't want me to mix up the genres of Alternative, Alternative & Punk, Alternative Rock, and AlternRock. Eddie Money's "Take Me Home Tonight" is categorized under Blues (actually, that may be fitting). And Kermit the Frog, too, because he's singing "It's Not Easy Being Green." Too bad the extent of my knowledge of blues begins and ends with, "I got the baby-baby-babysitting blues..." White Snake is under the genre "Genre," proving once and for all that White Snake is stupid ass music, although they can still rock you like a hurricane. "Physical" by Olivia Newton-John is the only song categorized under New Romance. Huh. Belinda Carlisle, Coldplay, K.D. Lang, Tiffany, and my college acapella group are Unclassifiable. I'm imagining them all at the random acquaintances table at a wedding. But best of all, BEST OF ALL, the couple John Mayer songs that I let on against my better judgment are filed under Noise. God, how I love this brilliant little piece of machinery.

home

Dirty Dancing was great. Maybe I'll write more about it later, but it was as good a time as ever, and it was (predictably) hard to come home. I had a chance to start poking around with writing something again, so we'll see what happens with that. It's been awhile.

After all was said and done, the Bride's wedding was a blast. Granted, that was because I knew a lot of people there, and my peoples always bring the fun. We danced for hours and hydrated with wine and beer after the waiters took away our water glasses. Good thinking, guys. It was hotter than hell in the church but it all went by pretty fast. One nice thing was spending some time with Connecticut's boyfriend, who I like more and more every time I see him. It just made me feel really happy for her, and kind of optimistic in general that maybe marriage doesn't have to be a completely scary prospect. Then I'd look at the Bride's husband and try to remind myself that she's happy and to each their own. How freakin' Zen of me.

Anyway, Connecticut and Disney did my hair and Jen did my make-up and they managed to turn me into a girl. It was fun, but I was very happy to be barefoot and bobby-pin free later on that night. Several funny/random/mildly disturbing afterhours happenings later, Jen and I finally fell into bed around four. Her dad had ordered us room service breakfast for the next morning, so it was nice to ingest the hangover greasiness without having to get out of bed. Later on I stopped at my parents' house to pick up some bags I'd left there and to listen to my mom tell me how incredibly stupid and pointless she thought every facet of the wedding was.

If you're watching the Sox/Yankees game right now, why yes that IS my dad behind home plate. I made him not wear his hat because he went by himself and I didn't want him to get any objects hurled at him. Does anyone else think it's kind of funny that the Yankee Haters hats just look like regular Yankees hats?

In other news, this is really funny.

I carried a watermelon?

Packing for Dirty Dancing is kind of ridiculous because even though it's July, you're so far north that it can get pretty cold and you need warm clothes. But then the sun comes out and you need summer things. And you need shoes that can accommodate both types of weather because happy feet are essential. Plus you have to dress up every night... so yeah, I basically end up bringing everything I own, and if given the opportunity I'd probably bring everything you own, too.

The actual Dirty Dancing was on TV last night. Ha. I never really got obsessed with that movie, but it's pretty funny:

-In real life, Johnny would clearly be gay. Dance teacher, tight t-shirts with cap sleeves, and he's tired of being used for sex (his words) by vast numbers of female guests.
-No guy who works at a resort complains about being used for sex by the guests.
-Johnny spends a lot of the movie being really irritated with Baby. In movies, when you act like you don't like somebody, it tends to mean that you secretly worship them and really just fear they'll never grasp the depth of your affection. In real life, if you act like you don't like somebody it's usually just because they're a total fuck bunny.
-I also love that there was this MASSIVE socioeconomic divide and the guests were all rich and preppy and felt so above the wrong-side-of-the-tracks staff, when the place was basically like this no-frills summer camp for adults.
-I like casually working the word "socioeconomic" into sentences.
-Why was everyone impressed with the lift at the end of the dance? It was kind of dumb and it took like ALL of Baby's vacation to learn it. Sorry, I'm such a bad child of the 80s.
-"Wow, a secret room full of professional dancers! I can't believe how vanilla I am! Who should I sleep with in order to rectify that and instantly make me worldly at, what, 16?"
-Baby's hair looked like all of our sixth grade perms. What was wrong with her, and us?
-She's Like the Wind is the funniest song! Plus, doesn't Patrick Swayze sing it? Although honestly, how much did you play that tape on your Walkman when you were in middle school? I know I did.
-WAIT wasn't that Hungry Eyes song in the movie, too?
-I LOVE movies (and songs and everything else) that are so bad, they're fantastic. But you knew that.

let's all go to Saskatchewan in August

Because I couldn't live with myself if I missed this.