Isolation

As can probably be surmized by my post on my terrible face, I'm in a dark place right now, hence the lack of posts lately. I feel like I should probably get this out somewhere, because I don't want to burden my husband and make him feel bad for this move. My brain knows that this move was an amazing chance at starting life again in a place where we weren't doomed to fail. My emotions aren't cooperating. I've been walking around in a fog without motivation or any semblance of joy. I have no patience, and tend to zone out a lot and think of either everything that's worrying me, or absolutely nothing at all. I cry a lot when I'm by myself. I can't sleep unless I take a sleeping pill. I'm mopey because I'm going to miss a big family reunion in a few weeks, and I feel like being surrounded by people who care about me could do me a lot of good. I'm trying to make friends here, but all I've got is Craigslist, and that's just a terrible crapshoot. People clearly don't understand the parameters set forth by the "strictly platonic" moniker, and I'm not looking for a FWB, dammit. I just want a friend. I don't know anyone here besides my family, and my neighbors all speak spanish. I share a car with a husband who is working 60 hour weeks, and have no one to rely on to keep an eye on my kids, so my lofty dreams of joining a gym or a Zumba class are unattainable. Flying myself and the kids back home for a week will cost me $1200 in airfare alone, and I'd do best to get a hotel room and rent a car, because my family doesn't have a lot of spare room for us to sleep in, and spending a week at my inlaws sounds about as appealing as having hot pokers put through my eyes. I lived in the house next door to them for two and a half years, and they didn't understand the concept of boundaries. I don't need to be spending gobs of time with them anytime in the near future. Needless to say, that even though we are comfortable living on one income, $1200+ is an expense that needs to be saved for. I hope I can get it together and fly home for Thanksgiving. That would be great, honestly. They give the kids in this school district a week off for Thanksgiving, instead of just a four day weekend, so it would give me plenty of time to see my family over a weeklong stay.

And now, for something completely different!

My breakouts are being beaten back by a generic Proactiv kit, which I've been using religiously for two weeks. The AM and PM chemical burn is satisfying pain that tells me that my face may look normal again in a month's time. The deep, painful cysts are starting to surface and rupture, so it doesn't hurt me to move my mouth anymore. Out of the three clustered on the side of my mouth, two have ruptured, and one is getting close. The pores are shrinking on my nose and under my eyes. The gruesome imitation of a bindi smack dab between my eyebrows is receeding. I still need makeup to look like a human instead of a monster with a lumpy face, but it's getting there. My kids aren't asking about the "boo-boos" on my face on a daily basis anymore, and for that, at least, I'm grateful.

I went out on a limb since I am getting some color to me, and am no longer so white I'm blue, and picked up the Garnier BB cream for combo/oily skin. I used it on Friday, when we were running errands, and was pretty amazed that it looked as good as it did when I got home after sweating so much in the 90 degree heat. It looked essentially like I had just put it on, and didn't do that gross thing that every other makeup does on me when it's hot out...it didn't curdle and gather in the crooks and lines of my face due to the oil given off from my face from the heat. So far, this actually seems to be better than any foundation I've tried, because every single foundation I've tried does that nasty curdle trick due to the crazy oily conditions of my face. So, yeah, thumbs up Garnier!

I had the fanciest strip mall pedicure EVER on Friday evening. I was scrubbed with two different exfoliators, massaged with lotions, creams, oranges (wait, what?), and hot stones. There was also a paraffin wax treatment for my feet, which I did not realize came with the service. My super scary hobbit feet are now relatively human looking. Super fancy, and I ended up paying about the same as I usually did when I went to the lame Korean places with four nail stations and two pedicure chairs that proliferate in Baltimore County. This place was crazy inside. The front holds about 15 nail stations, and the back has pedicure chairs lined up on either side of the wall, approximately 20 total. The whole place was packed. Not a single seat open. I don't understand how I happened into the place at the perfect time and was put directly in a chair for a foot soak. It was a like a finely tuned pedicure giving machine there. The girl who did my feet also did my manicure while the paraffin was doing it's job on my feet, as well as offerring me my choice of complimentary beverage. Sadly, a fire ant came and bit me while I was outside not too long ago, and my freshly pedicured left foot is all red and swollen. I picked the Orly color Berry Blast, which is a sheer hot pinkish color, and it's totally clashing with the swollen red thing I've got going on now.

My hair is in full revolt. The tragic pixie (as opposed to the lovely pixies I had done in MD) that I had cut when I first got to TX three months ago is growing out. The back is pretty close to how it used to be when I wore my hair in an asymetrical bob, but the front just seems so damned short. I could deal with bangs, but the woman who cut my hair three months ago did something weird to the wispy pieces that are supposed to sit in front of the ears, and they're tragically short, and want to do nothing more that stick straight out from the side of my head. Too short to tuck behind my ears, and too short to be forced into place with bobby pins. I'm getting the itch to find a decent hairstylist to just give me a decent pixie and stop this madness. I showed the last one a picture of me with the exact haircut I wanted from two angles, but didn't get anything close to the sleek, simple Mia Farrow-esque do I loved, instead ending up with a pouffy mess on top of my head and the back of my head shaved so close you could see skin through the milimeter or so of hair left. I'm justifiably scared of the results of trying to find a new hairdresser. Instead, I'm just repeating my mantra of "ponytail, ponytail, ponytail" and hoping the next two months fly by, so I can have a reasonable facsimile of a short bob with long bangs, and getting a trim to even it out won't give me heart palpitations. I walk around most days with a bandanna tied around my head to cover my shame.