i've been tanning.

and not in the sun.

now if you know me at all, you know how horribly hypocritical this is!

also, if you know me at all, you also know about my lovely porcelain complexion. (i.e. ghostly, fish-belly, skim-milk, bluish-white) anyhoo, several factors mounted to lead me to the decision to fake bake.

sub point 1) i've got fifteen extra pounds on me from the pregnancy. (well, it's really from all the pepsi and chocolate, but you know what i mean.) now i don't really look the extra fifteen with my clothes on, which is great, but say hello bathing suit and all shall be revealed. and as we all know, chub looks a bit better when it's brown. it's one of life's great mysteries.

sub point 2) said ghostly pale complexion will turn beat-ass crazy-painful lobster red if i don't have some manner of base tan before hitting the florida beaches. yow.

sub point 3) it was really really cheap. all-you-can-bake for five weeks for twenty bucks. you will die laughing when you see what color i am after five weeks of tanning. i'm only just now losing my jellyfish sheen.

it's so weird, you know. when i was a kid, i used to get dark dark brown in no time. i guess ten or so years without sun can really fade your tan. but i tell ya, the smooth absence of wrinkles on my face is a damned good trade for a white bod! :)

ANYWAY, the whole point in revealing this indiscretion is to tell you all DO NOT GO TO TANNING BEDS! i mean, it's one thing to tan for an 'event' here and there in your life. but seriously, there are some twenty-year-old chicks coming out of there looking a lovely shade of handbag brown, faces all wrinkly with those little white raccoon circles around their eyes from the goggles. seriously! and don't even get me started on the old chicks in there. (older than me, i mean. ahem.) when i'm fifty, i'm probably going to freak out if a ray of sun even touches the corner of my eye! "ahhhh, no!! wrinkles! i'm meeeeellllltttiiiinnnnggg!" i'm sure as heckfire not going to be baking them in deeper in some toxic tanning bed.

but some of the people that go in there really intrigue me. i mean, yes, i expect the high-school pre-sorority girls, sorority girls, and the grown-up post sorority girls. and to be fair, when you go to all those functions and are wearing a seven-hundred dollar gown, you might as well make it look really good with a twenty-dollar tan. but there is one super-hippy chick that i always see in there. i mean, birkenstocks, beaded ratty hair, knit handbag. and she is as brown as a shoe. it doesn't seem to fit. i also saw some old guy there who totally looked like a college chemistry professor. pocket-protector and everything, i'm crapping you negative. and a punk girl? jet black hair, tattoos from head to toe, black eyeliner down to her cheekbone. leather handbag brown skin. it's crazy. i've learned a lot in the past five weeks. i don't know if i'm any better spiritually, emotionally or intellectually. but at least i can hope that when i'm on the beach in florida, greenpeace activists won't be trying to roll me back into the water.