Man it’s a stinker. Not a ‘hot one, like seven inches from the midday sun’ glamour heat like Rob Thomas sang in the 1999 hit Smooth with Santana. It’s just a stinker. And I don’t feel so glamourous, like those sunkissed, sun loving models dancing around in the Smooth video clip.

As I said before, my skin doesn’t handle the heat. One of the things about ichthyosis is that my body doesn’t regulate its temperature. So I generally feel quite cold inside, but hot to the touch, and have a difficult time cooling down. Confusing.

So it’s my second blog entry here. And I don’t mean to be negative. But I’m going to be honest in this blog. And being honest usually means being realistic about the social and medical challenges of my illness. To an extent of course – there are things about my illness that will stay in my head and in my home.

I went out to get some dinner and escape the heat in my local massive shopping centre. I bought a few extra Christmas presents, and was on the hunt for some silver sandals to wear with my new maxi dress to the work Christmas party. No luck, I hate buying shoes because my feet are really small, and none of them were ‘simple’ enough except for a pair in gold, BUT I WANTED SILVER. I digress.

So I’m looking at some shoes in a department store. A kid in a trolley was crying, having a tantrum. And then he saw me. He was about three.

He pointed to me, said to his Mum, ‘she’s horrible’.

His Mum was very embarrassed, very apologetic.

I said to him ‘I was born like this, just like you were born with your blue eyes’.

He replied ‘you’re still horrible’.

His Mum said ‘but she’s still a nice lady’.

Geez.

So as the kid said I’m horrible, in quite a loud voice, other shoppers looked at me.

It would have been funny if it wasn’t so awkward.

So now I’m going to sound like a condescending, holier than thou bitch, but I will say it anyway.

If you think you’ve had a fat day/bad hair day/your boyfriend wanted to stay home and play Playstation instead of watching the Notebook with you…well get some perspective. I was bloody well called horrible by some kid, and stared at by countless others.

I can’t really explain what it feels like to be stared at because you’re different. It probably feels worse than being stared at because you’re beautiful. I hate the feeling of knowing people are scared of me, shocked, confronted, surprised and judgemental. Sometimes I just want to be stared at because someone think’s I’m beauituful.

I promise my next blog entry will be more positive. But it felt good to vent 🙂