when i woke up this morning, i was struck with more than the usual monday dread. yes, the sun was glaring at me and my mind was doing its usual flip-through of this week’s to-dos and there was the lingering sense that another delicious dream had come to a grinding halt. when i put on my glasses and my room came into focus, however, something else gnawed at me. it was a zit.<\/p>\n
the tender, red bump had appeared, overnight, on the bridge of my nose, right where my glasses rest, and it hurt. bad.<\/p>\n
when i was in junior high and all the girls were replacing their bonne bell lip gloss with eye shadow and mascara, i was being told no. no, i could not wear make up. (no, i did not need a bra. no, i would never, ever get a Guess acid-washed denim jacket no matter how many times i asked.) make-up would would ruin my skin, mom said, and maybe she was right, because i went through high school zit-free and all my friends hated me for it.<\/p>\n
i would have to pretend that i didn’t see the bumps grazing their foreheads and the blemish forming on the tip of their noses, although sometimes i just couldn’t stop staring at them. i just didn’t know what it felt like.<\/p>\n
that has changed because now, ten years later, i’m going through a second puberty. i am developing painful crushes on movie stars who will never know i am alive, i am writing bad poetry in my diary and i am getting pimples — big, fat, ugly ones — and i don’t know what to do about it. i’m trying to remember what they used to say in the girls’ bathroom. squeeze it. no, don’t squeeze it. put a hot towel on your face. use clearasil. leave it alone.<\/i> shouldn’t i have learned this by now.<\/p>\n
defeated, i do nothing. when i go out, i don’t even try to cover it up. i put no make-up on as always and hope they just don’t see it. but if they did, i wouldn’t blame them. when i look in the mirror, it’s the only thing i see.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
when i woke up this morning, i was struck with more than the usual monday dread. yes, the sun was glaring at me and my mind was doing its usual flip-through of this week’s to-dos and there was the lingering sense that another delicious dream had come to a grinding halt. when i put on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/maganda.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/maganda.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/maganda.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/maganda.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/maganda.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=299"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/maganda.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/maganda.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/maganda.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/maganda.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}