parasites

So I've had parasites in my face for a while, in the hair follicles. These parasites make my skin red and very flaky, and I feel self conscious about it, a lot. Especially frustrating is that when I was in Thailand, I went to the doctor and he gave me medicine and told me to use it for a month. So I used it for five weeks. But it didn't go away, I think it's actually worse than it was before, probably because the dry air makes my skin even drier.

But it's not all glass half-empty folks.

I was thinking the other night about how people all around me are suffering, and how I forget that a lot. I forget that everyone is going through something and forget to be sensitive to that and sensitive to how I can help in whatever way. So I wanted a way to remind myself, and thought about something I could wear that would remind, something that was annoying or painful. Not terribly painful, obviously, but something that would remind me. Then today it hit me that my face should be reminder enough. It's itching constantly and I'm constantly thinking about it, what better thing to remind me?

Anyway, I don't make that connection to be trite or to pretend that my parasites are suddenly a good thing. They're not. But, however long I have them, hopefully they can remind me that I'm not the only one and that, ultimately, skin falling off my face in large chunks is a pretty minimal problem compared to a lot of the shit that other people go through.

This feels like a very suburban revelation.