Worse than cooties, by far.

June 3, 2002

Watching eXistenZ last night, I was reminded of the time when I this strange skin disease.

It's exactly what a nerd doesn't need in a new state and a new elementary school. I can't remember the name of the skin disease, but I did remember that it was pretty rare, some kind of virus, and only contagious at a small period of time.

Let's just say that there was pus, crusty scabs, and blister-like things. I had the infection on my head and on my hands. For my head, the doctor proscribed T/Gel, that anti-dandruff shampoo. My best friend told me that they use it on their dog, and it smelled like tar.

We were playing tag or something, and one kid grabbed at me, and snatched my head. I pulled away in horror. "I have delicate hairs," I told them. Of course they laughed at me, I sounded like such a priss. What was I going to tell them, though? That my head oozed like the Blob and my scalp is like sponge?

I got a haircut once at Supercuts, and even though we told the stylist to be careful with my hair, she pulled and yanked, puling out chucks of hair with bits of skin still attached to it. When we left, my head was raw and little bloody, and my father was pissed.

My fingers blistered but there was no pain. But they eventually scabbed over so much that I couldn't bend my fingers.

My mother and I were in a Kmart when I noticed that the scabs on my hands were peeling. It was exhilarating to tear the callousy things off to have normal smooth skin underneath.

It might be why I had developed this obsessive need to be clean all the time. I took two showers a day, washed my hands repeatedly, and was pretty prissy with messy foods.

It took two decades for me to overcome the constant cleaning and washing, especially since I found out that it was causing my dry skin problem...