Zap, zap, zap. Ouch, ouch, ouch.

I had an odd shaped little bump appear on the side of my face so I dropped by my doctor for him to have look see. A childhood on the Texas Gulf Coast and the resultant annual severe summer sun burn has left me with a heeby jeeby reaction to anything that might be cancerous. Of course, this wasn't anything, but then Mark, my doctorman, asked "As long as you're here, do you want to deal with some of those broken blood vessels on your nose?"

My people originated in Ireland, England, Germany, that broad swath of Northern Europe where all forms of cabbage are so very popular and where pale skin evolved as a away of dealing with seeing sunshine only a couple a weeks out of the year. That was fine until, like my family, they had the bright idea of migrating to Texas and California where fair complexions are a real hazard. Consequently, aside from the silly old melanoma issue, I have a nose as I enter middle age that looks like it was modeled on that of W.C. FIelds. It's basically a kind of faint magenta with a tracery of blood vessels; rather like having a map of Ireland printed on my nose. Pretty.

I know from past experience the "Let's deal with those" that Mark was so casually referring to is a torture involving an electric needle that fries the vessels. It's true, they're gone afterwards, but it's also true IT HURTS. I have mentioned, have not I, what a coward about ouchies I am. Mark's answer is that I should take a deep breath and hold it during the electrocution. He claims it will help, but I suspect it's really to keep me from shrieking during each zap.

I know this is what Ladies go through regularly with electrolosis to shape eyebrows and such and all I can say is you go girl, you're better woman than me. When my pal Jen was describing her waxing process, I was laughing, but also feeling sort of vaporish. She got to the point where the waxer demanded Jen hold her buttocks open ("You help.") and I thought my I saw my life pass before me, like a drowning man. Jen's boyfriend is terribly, terribly cute, but I think if someone demanded I spread my cheeks prepatory to ripping the hairs out with dried wax, I would turn lesbian and learn to love my hairy crack.