From Heavy Topics to Lighter Fare
By Nicole Freire

Nicole's Lipstick

Last week was a little heavy, right? What with all the brain business and making fun of French cars. Before I switch topics, I found this the other day and think it's hysterical.

"There is a well-defined, 1.3 x 1.1 x 0.9 cm high T2 signal lesion in the region of the pineal gland which contacts the superior tectal plate. This has some mild peripheral enhancement. The cerebellum and brain stem are unremarkable."

This, of course, is from one my radiology reports and what I think is funny is not the description of the 'lesion' but the fact that the rest of my brain is UNREMARKABLE. Which was kind of a little blow to the old self esteem. I happen to think my brain is fairly remarkable. But anyway.

I also wanted to say thank you and yes, I'm all right to those who commented on the brain post. You are such nice people, and some of you are totally kicking some brain things of your very own, and keep it up, you all rock.

My UNREMARKABLE brain decided to further expound on a much more interesting topic, one that has also been consuming some of my thoughts to such a degree that the shallowness factor is way high. Although I do think there is a correlation between freaking out about one's brain and deciding that talking about lipstick is important. Hey, scary event! Hey, look at the shiny thing! See? It's all about distraction.

Anyway, remember how back in the old days of my first post this year? I said I'd keep it up, this weekly conversation and that I would try my best to not pick at my chapped lips.

Well, I managed to keep up the weekly thing and then totally fell apart with the lip thing. Because it kept getting worse. I think I bought six different types of lip balm in three days, desperately trying to keep my lips from looking even more digusting.

Since the costly lip balms weren't working, I threw in the towel and took myself to the dermatologist. Dermatologists love me because of my freckled Irish skin, the kind that requires measuring (again with the metric system) freckles and looking at them under magnifying glasses and jotting notes and prescriptions for sunscreens and well, chapped lips.

Eczema! Eww! On my lips! Ouch! But six weeks later and going cold turkey on every lip balm and lipsticks and lip liners in my possesion and instead only using some oddly named prescription ointment, I can finally smile without my lips falling apart in some weird sci-fi melting skin disease.

I'm only allowed to use Vaseline now. And I miss my lipsticks. I miss them a lot. The colorful tubes, the cute names, the kind that come with lipgloss, the kind with little mirrors, the uber feminine calling card, the all American girl accessory, the lipstick - is now denied to me.

I think I've been wearing lipstick since I was 11 or 12 and it seems strange after all these years to now to have these pale lips (although they look better now) and to not have shiny tubes of lipstick in my purse, only the incredibly unsexy jar of Vaseline.

Even more unsexy is that often it's just referred to as a 'tub' of Vaseline, not a 'jar'. The only things that should come in 'tubs' are ice cream and the occasional bubble bath.

So here's a picture of some pretty lipsticks and lip balms, all of which I'm not allowed to use anymore.

Nicole Freire is a freelance writer who lives in Santa Barbara.