Skin Deep

In an old blog entry "Sight for Sore Eyes", you'd remember that at some point while I was working on my homepage (I forgot I didn't pay the damned URL/domain, so it's down right now), I wrote these about myself...

Had the worst case of the pox at 20 years old. Got hideously ugly...and refused to go out without a cap, dark glasses and a gas mask. Went through a case of near-death experience (which up to now, I have stubbornly rationalized as the glare of the damned overhead fluorescent lamps). Deserted a supposedly flourishing career in show biz...and lamented on it. Have wept gallons of tears in sheer desperation. Have cussed to no end for my terrible fate. And then have gotten hold of a bunch of Chickensoup for the Soul books. And finally moved on. Still a little bit ugly, but nevertheless cheerful.

It's been a year, and after leagues of rejections and "Thank you, buh-bye"'s from countless VTRs that I went to--replete with Maybelline 3-in-1 make-up--I decided it's time to fix my Goddamned skin. This whole chicken pox scars shit has got to go. And my almost ten years of patiently waiting for my skin to resurface isn't really going anywhere. It's time to make a move.

After more than nine months of postponing my scheduled appointment with a dermatologist that my best friend Pat has recommended (whom he quasi-dated in the very distant past), I finally picked up the phone.

About two days ago, I was waiting in line at Dr. Dimayuga's clinic somewhere in Makati. After being stared at under the bright almost-neon lamps and getting poked and scaled and scrutinized even further, 15 minutes later, I was out the door with approximately 2,000 bucks worth of soap, astringent, clarifying lotion, pore-refining cream, sun block, Tretinoin, bleaching cream, and a whole lot of optimism.

Mirror, mirror on the wall......