The Big Red One

I feel like my left ear is gigantic, abnormally swollen and making my whole head off balance. It isn't really, it just feels that way. And even though it's not the size of a watermelon, like it feels, it does look pretty disgusting. Red, blistery, with flaking skin.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the Great Pale One has reached a new level of paleness. I got sunburnt--on my ear. Just my ear, and just the one. Ok, actually, my scalp's a little sunburnt too along the part (it's blistering too, pretty nasty), but you can't see that, so it looks like I just have this one random sunburnt ear.

So how, you might ask, does one get sunburnt on just one ear? To the point of blistering? Well, partly by being stupid. Yeah, I know, big surprise.

So here's my explanation: Last weekend, Randi and I went to lunch with some friends, and it was a beautiful day, so we sat outside. It was warm, but cool enough that I was wearing long sleeves (so no sun on the arms), and the sun was to my left (so no right ear burn). Since I am so pale, I wear makeup that has sunscreen in it (hence no face burn). During the hour we were outside, I apparently got mildly sunburnt. I just didn't realize it. Last week, my ear was just kind of itchy, and I attributed it to dry skin. I also noticed that the top of head just felt kind of, well, raw, which I really couldn't figure out. For awhile, I thought I was having some kind of wierd allergic reaction.

Well this weekend, I went home with Randi to help with her Relay for Life team's BBQ chicken sale, at which we were sitting in the sun. Randi's face gets burned, and I'm sitting there, again in long sleeves and with the sun to my left, complaining about how my ear and head hurt, and trying to figure out why. After we're all done, we head back to Randi's parents, and I bum some Benadryl off Randi's mom, still thinking, despite the fact that my ear is bright red, that I am having an allergic reaction. I fall into a two-hour, Benadryl-induced coma. Sometime during those two hours, Tasha calls me, and I ramble something to her that I'm sure made absolutely no sense.

After I finally wake up, I go to the mirror and look at my ear, and notice it's blistering. At this point, Randi's mom looks at me and says, "I think it's sunburn." Duh--I'm so dumb. So basically, I got burnt last weekend, but was too stupid to realize it, so I went out in the sun again this weekend without sunscreen and got burnt even worse. And now I have blistery ooze coming out of my ear and scalp. Ick. I hate being pale.