In which I put the "hot" in "hot tub".

This weekend, Brad and I were lucky enough to spend some time out in the Hamptons with a few dear friends, a hot tub, and fridge full of grillable meats. We sat on the beach, we lazed by the pool, we ate at least ten different kinds of animal, and it was lovely.

Not so lovely, however, was waking up yesterday to discover that I had returned from the Hamptons not just with a terrific tan, but also with a new friend.

Ladies and gentlemen, say hello to Hot Tub Rash.

Note: The above is a WebMD photo, not a picture of my actual skin, because even I have some limits, goddamnit.

Apparently, hot tubs are more than just a bubbly recreational plaything that serve as the preferred hookup location for Jersey Shore residents and Bachelor contestants alike; they are readymade incubators for a very special bacteria, a bacteria that wants nothing more than to attach itself to your epidermis and chew on it until it looks like it belongs to a 17 year-old boy with a raging case of cystic acne.

Which is to say, guess what I look like right now.

Of course, it took me awhile to get to this point. At first, I had no fucking clue what was going on, which led me to spend the morning doing google image searches for "red spots all over body", which is not an activity I would recommend to anyone who wants to maintain a firm grip on his appetite, and which also led me to freak out when I decided that the thing my spots most resembled was not hives, and not bug bites, but boils.

Boils!

Dear readers, if you ever want to feel really bad about yourself, I cannot recommend enough deciding that you might have boils -- which not only means learning that the preferred treatment method is a technique called "lancing and draining", otherwise known as "stabbing the boil with a pointy stick", but also reading a series of painfully gentle suggestions that you avoid future boils by "attempting to practice good hygiene."

Because basically, if you've got boils, it's because you're a filthy motherfucker who doesn't bathe. No wonder they want to stab you.

Fortunately, a few more tumbles down the google-search rabbit hole led me to the truth: I don't have boils. I do, however, have Hot Tub Rash, which is not exactly better. Especially since, even though it's apparently insanely freaking common, there's no treatment for it.

"Don't worry!" the websites say, as you desperately scroll to the subheader marked Treatment. "In most cases, hot tub rash will clear on its own within 7-10 days."

Yes, that's right kids, only seven to ten days! That's great, right? I mean, you weren't doing anything this weekend anyway, were you?

Of course, that didn't stop me from going to the doctor -- which is really the only place you can go when your entire face is covered in something that looks like nuclear chickenpox. And of course, the doctor had never heard of hot tub rash and was convinced that there was some other explanation.

Doctor: You haven't had any changes to your diet?
Me: No.
Doctor: Allergies?
Me: No.
Doctor: Spider bites?
Me: I'm not the most observant person in the world, but I think even I would have noticed if at some point this weekend my entire body was covered in spiders.
Doctor: It could have been one big spider.
Me: Fuck spiders! HOW MUCH LONGER AM I GOING TO LOOK LIKE THIS?!
Doctor: I'll give you some Cipro.

And she did.

But still, chances are that I'll be confined to my apartment for the next week and a half while my skin does its best impression of a pizza. Which is great, really, because not only have I always wanted to spend my wedding anniversary covered in nuclear pustules, but because it'll give me ample time to participate in my new favorite activity of lying on the floor, in the fetal position, in a puddle made up of equal parts cortisone cream and my own tears.

Also, if anyone knows of any good movies currently available on Netflix instant, now would be an excellent time to share.

Chop chop

Normally I'd preface this post with some kind of story. A nice big chunk of text, fun and full of words, so that you would feel that I'd given this blog the full weight of my writerly efforts, and I would be able to tell myself that I haven't turned into the world's most boring human being. (Which I totally have.)

Normally, there would be background info. Like, maybe I would remind you guys about the horrible things that happened the last time I went to a salon.

Or maybe I'd tell you about the time I was watching "Rosemary's Baby" and, despite the fact that there were a bunch of people having naked, nasty devilsex right in front of me, all I could think about was how adorable Mia Farrow's hair looked.

Or maybe I'd show you a Kat-through-the-years pictorial to illustrate that -- apart from a brief and regrettable blonde phase during college -- I am such a style-related sissypants that I've pretty much had the same haircut since 1989, and it was high time to stop dicking around.

But in this case, there's kind of no point. Because no matter what I say, this is one of those times when no amount of elegant verbiage can make the point better than this....

...followed by this.


Yep, that's right: IT'S ALL GONE. And this week, Locks of Love will be receiving an envelope containing sixteen inches of my hair. (Sixteen inches of love, y'all -- because size does matter.)

Which I am telling you not because I want you to think I'm a wonderful person, but because I'm hoping it'll distract you from my ham-fisted attempt to skew opinion in favor of the new haircut by posting a "before" shot that makes me look like the bastard child of Jack Nicholson's Joker and the demonic television-dwelling ghost from The Ring.

It didn't work, did it.

Tour de Brooklyn, Tour de France.

On Friday afternoon, after a day spent pecking at my keyboard in a lethargic, pajama-clad funk, I finally mustered the energy to pull on a skirt and ride my bike to the grocery store in order to get dinner ingredients. The store was blessedly cool, I was supremely hungry, and before long I'd loaded up an awful lot of stuff: pound of crabmeat, various vegetables, several pints of blackberries, a big new bottle of olive oil, and an assortment of items in cans.

In short, a bit too much stuff for a basket-less bike to accomodate. Wobbling away with the unwieldy bounty -- it weighed at least twenty pounds -- slung lumpily onto my back, I felt top-heavy and disturbingly off-balance. (I have no idea if Quasimodo ever wanted a bike during his tenure at Notre Dame -- between all the lust and death and ringing of bells, Victor Hugo never mentioned whether his misshapen protagonist had a secret, secondary yearning for a Peugeot -- but if he gave it a try and then decided against it, I think I understand why.)

And then, right when the straps of the bag were starting to bruise and the bike was wheezing along and I had decided that it might be better to just get off and walk it, my shoelace suddenly came untied, caught in the pedal, and yanked my whole center over hard to one side.

WELL.
I want you to know right now that I did not tip over.
Again, I did not. Tip. Over.

Instead, I executed the most brilliant grocery-laden cycling save in the history of Brooklyn, and possibly the world:




Needless to say, I was pretty effing pleased with myself. And even moreso when, after successfully tucking my shoelaces in without so much as hitting the brakes, I heard the sound of applause coming from the sidewalk, looked up, and discovered that a group of production guys from one of the nearby film stages had been watching the whole exercise, and were now giving me a standing ovation.

Hell yes, I thought, grinning from ear to ear. How great is that? How GREAT? Is THAT?! How often does a person manage to unsnag their shoelaces from a bicycle apparatus, while in motion, while carrying twenty-five pounds of groceries in a sack, and actually have an entire horde of dudely dudes witness the awesomeness? How! Great! Is! That!

WELL.
Understandably, I thought it was VERY GREAT INDEED.

I thought it was so great, in fact, that I made it almost all the way home before the thrill wore off enough for me to realize that the round of applause probably had very little to do with sincere appreciation for my impeccable awesomeness.

And a lot to do with the fact that, with one ankle propped up on the crossbar, there is very little question that they all had a multi-second-long, totally unobstructed, super premium view of my crotch.