Keepin' it real

I was having a discussion with my best friend a few days ago, about the real me. Including things I just can't make sense of, and things that just truly annoy me. Things I obsess about changing, but have somehow come to accept as a part of my everyday life because it seems there simply is no solution to the problem. They are my problems, and they are 'me'

I said I was thankful I'm married, because I wonder how I'd ever find a date with all my weirdness...which led us to how funny it would be to create a personals ad based on the real truth. Which we almost posted, then decided it would be cruel, because what if there was one poor schmuck who decided to accept us despite all of our flawed weirdness? Then we'd have to break his heart. No way.

So this is what I realized-

I know we all have those little 'things', those little quirks or blemishes that we hide from everyone. Well what would happen if we just said hey, guess what..."I have a third nipple" (I really don't, but you don't know that do you? I totally could...but I don't...seriously...just two) What I do have is a bunch of weirdness that is, essentially, me...and I'm ready to just be me, the real me. Enough with the charade. Join me, if you like. Fess up to all your quirky flaws...or just get a good laugh reading about mine. I have nothing better to do. I'm at work for the next 9 hours...and this is my solution to boredom for the day.

I am 31 yrs old, well, for 3 more months at least. And I am starting to feel old. I never felt that before, but here it is. Old. I weigh far more than I'd like to, but I have finally accepted that I'll never fit into my 'skinny' clothes again. I have every intention of losing weight, but I realize squeezing into my Jr High school jeans is no longer a goal. It just isn't realistic. So I have thrown them all out (to GoodWill, of course) and settled into a more relaxed body image. I do need to lose weight, but not that much. Except in the boob region, boy those things get in the way, and they're travelling south for the winter...a very long winter.

Then there is the sweating thing. I'm puzzled by the fact that I can sweat when I'm freezing. And not only that, but I sweat more on my right side than my left. Can someone please explain to me why my right pit sweats, while the rest of my body acts normal? please? I just don't get it! And if someone has a magic antiperspirant that actually does what its name implies, please, please share your knowledge with me? It's hard to explain the embarrassment of having a sweat stain on your shirt...on one pit...constantly. It's just icky. And ANNOYING.

And then...there is the thing with my nose. My nose runs constantly...but only on one side. This time it happens to be the left side. OK, maybe I know why this happens, but it doesn't really matter, because no one else would, unless I tell them...and can you imagine? I'd just need a T-shirt that has this printed on it:

"FYI -If you see a tiny drop of water on the end of my nose, well it's not water...it is snot, clear snot, but still snot...anyway. If you see that, don't think 'Ewww! Gross!' Just be polite and hand me a tissue, because I don't know it's there. Seriously. I can't feel it. I had a car accident in 94 and crushed my nose on the rear view mirror. It's fixed, but I have nerve damage and loss of feeling in some spots. I even have a reversal of feeling in other spots - I can rub the side of my nose and not feel anything there, but somehow I feel rubbing on the tip of my nose...weird, I know, but true! Ahhh! I'm getting of topic...so my left nostril for some reason is always moist, to put it best. And I cannot feel it when it gets a little too moist, so be a dear and hand me a tissue if it happens to be one of the 1 out of 100 times i am not already armed with a tissue. I carry a box, but sometimes I forget. So, I usually blame it on allergies, but it isn't allergies. I'm just embarrassed. And I'm sick of being embarrassed. And please know that I wash my hands obsessively. I am a germaphobe with a leaky nose...so, as you can imagine, I don't have much idle time on my hands BTW...do you have a tissue to spare?"

-I suppose that would need to be a really, really big shirt. Maybe I could just hand out flyers with the above printed on it. That would be easier...a little weird, maybe. then again...I can't feel my left nostril and I have a perpetually sweaty right pit, so what's a little more weirdness??

And I guess I could mention my freak tongue (no, not like Gene Simmons-Yikes!) I have what is called Benign Migratory Glossitis, common name: Geographic Tongue. No my tongue doesn't travel, but my tastebuds do! It's totally harmless and you can't catch it (even though it's on the move-snort! ) but it is freaky! They call it geographic tongue because the patterns look like areas on a map. There are different types of taste buds, and most people have normal amounts of each, but people with GT have odd numbers of them, and they constantly change...like by the hour, no joke! So I might see London in the morning, at night I'd see France, I might might even see the shape of underpants...OK I'll stop! Seriously, there are always spots on my tongue where I have absolutely no tastebuds. Zero. Just big smooth spots. And for all of you normal people...let me just tell you this: be thankful for your tastebuds. They are one of those body parts that are taken for granted. For me, things often taste strange. And then there is spicy food. You never realize how much your tastebuds protect your mouth until you bite into a hot pepper with a 'naked' tongue... Owweee! I also get paranoid about laughing too hard, because I might open my mouth really wide allowing someone to see my tongue, causing them to wonder what frozen flag pole I got stuck to, or worse, what freaky disease I'm carrying around and could those little droplets of saliva emitted from my hysterical laughter infect the rest of them???

I could go on to tell you about all the other strange anomalies I possess, like having one nipple bigger than the other one, and the bigger one is on the smaller of the two boobs, thanks to the careless hands of the surgeon who did my reduction surgery back in 94...just three weeks before that car accident, which prompted me to threaten the life of the EMT who attempted to cut off my new teeny-weeny bra...

...but I'm guessing no one's still reading this post... I am officially monkey-leashed, and there's no escape.

Besides, I have to go shove a cork up my left nostril and put some deodorant on my right pit, while I hold my shoulders crooked so my boobs don't look lop-sided.