I’m on fire.
My arms are a sickening shade of deepening pink. They throb with life, with blood, with heat.
Ha, sorry. That was starting to sound like crappy internet poetry, and I’ve sworn off that for a while.
What I’m trying to say is that I got a heaping helping of UV radiation today, and that my idiot ass didn’t even apply sunblock until I’d been outside in a tank top for three hours. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky. And it was so fucking nice and mild out that I forgot that the sun wouldn’t think twice about obliterating me with deadly rays of skin-shriveling poison. So, I flitted about with my alabaster arms exposed for the first time this year.
And now I’m paying for it. It feels like it’s a hundred degrees in this apartment. But it’s not. It’s just that my arms are nice and crispy and keeping me warm. If it was January I could wrap them around me and close the radiators. Efficient!
I’m quaffing glassfuls of Big House Pink — my first blush of the year — to numb the sting. But it persists.
Still, it’s worth it. Phil and I trucked it out to Shelby Farms this morning for some wholesome Earth Day fun. Which means, basically, that a bunch of vendors and non-profits set up tents in the park and tried to hawk their services and products to the good folks this fine Sunday. Which, honestly, I was in no mood for. I just wanted to go out by the lake (okay, one of the lakes) and lie down and just soak up that deadly sunlight. So that’s what we did, eventually, after several comic turns involving parking guards and lawn chairs and long walks back to the car and forgotten keys.
I’d never been to Shelby Farms before today. Sad, I know. But it is freaking awesome. I mean, you may be SHOCKED to learn that I’m not the outdoorsy type, but I swear this place is big enough that you don’t have to mingle with other park-goers if you don’t want to, but you can totally participage in park-society if you want. There’s places to paddleboat and to fish and to play frisbee golf and to ride horses and oh my god everyone at Shelby Farms has a freaking kite to fly. Oh, and there are dogs everywhere. Which is cool, in my book. Just watch where you step.
It’s an amazing space and one of the things I can honestly say that this city (county?) has done right.
Next time, though — and there will be a next time soon — I will immerse myself in a vat of Coppertone before I leave the apartment.