My Face

What is it about a face? I have an oozing sore on my face, but if it appeared on my arm, or my neck, even, women everywhere would not flinch, followed by the attempt to hide the flinch, upon seeing the herpes (yes, you call any sore in or on your mouth herpes) on my face. The problem with the oozing is no one can actually see that part, but I can feel it. It creates a little crust on there so it drives me a bit batty as I imagine the monstrosity that is my lip. Sure, I joke, I call it my alien, or a botched piercing. But a casual gander in the mirror, and despite the fact that it is nary a centimeter wide, and my otherwise rather decent face becomes an atrocious offense to females everywhere, including me. Probably only me. Once out of doors, I have no companion mirror to confirm that it's bad, but not flaking or dripping, so I'm a boat with one oar, a kite with no string? This paranoia is especially potent when traipsing through a cosmetics aisle, past the many gleaming bottles of cover-up, the women reading carefully, as if from the talmud, or perhaps a nutrition label. The face and I feign indifference to such concerns, as we aim toward the prescription counter to get the pills to retard the growth of the offending invader. Why fuss over a lollipop red third eye emanating from my upper lip; its golden crust occasionally accumulating, hardening, and flaking off? I want it gone, now.

Back to the original question: what is it about a face? Despite research and literature and revelations about the misguided emphasis on beauty, the fact remains that no one, no one is cavalier about having an open sore or a huge zit or any sort of growth on one's face. The face is the mechanism through which we present our selves - our feelings, our thoughts - to the world. Plus: everyone looks at your face! If your shoes don't match, you could go all day without a sole -haha - noticing. But! If you have a piece of green something in your teeth, I will watch it the whole time we are talking. Unless we are absolutely transcendent, and I absolutely am not, we really truly care about the face.

The lesson here is, um, that it's important to be open about our faces because, unlike more serious maladies, everyone can see them anyway? An open-face sandwich is actually a political statement? Don't kiss a frog if she has an oozing sore? Dare to go out-of-doors, even when you look like a dermatology textbook photo? Or perhaps, in this one instance, grow a moustache.


A caveat: I am quite sure that having herpes on one's face is preferable to having genital herpes, and that is a topic that I am unqualified to write about. Nevertheless, sex is a natural part of being alive and STDs happen - to the brave, the smart, the good, the bra-less, and the young preppies.