Or not. Maybe we’ll all carefully open the door, remove our shoes, and gently tip-toe into the year, careful not to disturb anything or anyone. Y’know, play it cool until we get the hang of it.
Yours Truly is starting the year with some sage wisdom. Some advice that was handed to me back in 1999 by a wise man named Baz Luhrmann.
“If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it.”
I’m a Saltine American. A non-melenated individual. An 8.5×11. My DNA hails from Northwest Europe. I’m pale, freckled, blue-eyed, and my hair carries with it a hint of my redheaded ancestry. Therefore, the sun and I have an interesting relationship. My childhood summers were spent in various states of pink and peeling, being hosed down with Bactine by my grandma. My freckles, which had faded out during the long Michigan winters, would come roaring back and make me look like I stood behind a muddin’ truck as it took off in 3rd gear. I grew to hate how my face looked in summers. I thought I looked monstrous.
Today I’m amused at how many non-freckled people want them so bad they go get them tattooed on.
As an adult I am much better at wearing sunscreen. I put it on every time I go to the beach, making sure to get new bottles every year, and coating every inch of skin before putting on my swimsuit. I take a wide-brimmed hat and a coverup, and spend my time out of the water under the umbrella.
When I’m not at the beach… well, I try. I have a bottle of CeraVe face lotion with spf30 that I try to use daily, have a selection of hats to wear when I’m working in the yard (shoutout to MC Chris for having a “nrrd grrl” ballcap in his merch line!), and I have a cute Battenberg lace style parasol that I carry when I go walking downtown.
I’m not perfect. I’ve forgotten to wear sunscreen when going to the Ren Fest. One year I wore my late 15th century Italian gown, which left my shoulders and upper chest mostly bare, and I ended up blistering from a sunburn. My skin looked like a car hood that was beaded with rain.
One year, when a friend of mine and I went to Key West, I somehow managed to not get sunscreen on the back of my right calf which resulted in a severe burn in the shape of a rum bottle. I ended up slathering that area multiple times with a Panama Jack after-sun lotion that had a mix of shea butter and aloe and smelled like limes. The burned skin peeled in one sheet, and left a rum-bottle tan on my leg for a YEAR.
I’ve seen the damage I’ve done to my skin. My bestie Michelle, whose birthday falls near Halloween so her parties are always costume themed, had an Alice in Wonderland party that featured multiple blacklights in the basement. The fun thing about a quality blacklight is it can show you where you’ve incurred sun damage. In the mirror I saw where my glasses block some of the light, where it’s most pronounced on my five-head, cheeks, nose, and chin, and the large swath of my chest and shoulders where I’ve failed to protect my skin.
2025 was the wake-up call. Over the summer I developed a pimple on the right side of my nose, right in the crease of the curve of my nostril, about where a piercing would sit. I’d been contemplating getting that side pierced for a while, but figured I’d wait until after the pimple cleared itself up.
Thing is… it wouldn’t. I tried patches. I tried ointments. I tried leaving it alone. I tried popping it. THAT ended up opening a wound that bled. What was left was a scab that wouldn’t go away. Any time I messed with it just caused more bleeding. I finally got to a point where it smoothed out, but it was still an odd, pink patch that didn’t fade.
In November, I went to the dermatologist for my first full-body skin check. We ascertained that other bumps and oddities were just scar tissue that would eventually mend themselves if I’d leave them alone, but the nose? Yikes. It was described as a “pearly pink papule” (say that 3 times fast) and would require a biopsy and a 10 day wait for results.
Of course this meant I was Googling the different forms of skin cancer and their various modes of treatment. I joked with people that I had “face cancer” and may end up looking like The Ghoul from Fallout. “Y’know, maybe I can have the derm just punch a hole out of my nose to remove it and I’ll throw a hoop through it and it can be my most expensive piercing!”
Thankfully it turned out to be a Basal Cell Carcinoma. Carcinooooomaaaaaaaa. It’s a fun word to say. Very woody. BCCs are the easiest to deal with with the best recovery rate. If you’re going to get a skin cancer, a BCC is what you hope for.
Fast forward to December 30th when I had it removed. It was an outpatient, in-house procedure where I was numbed up (the worst part, honestly), had the carcinoma sliced off, the wound cauterized, and got to cool my heels for a half hour while they examined the excised flesh and rotated with two other patients who were in for the same procedure.
Fortunately, the surgeon got it in one go. In the MOHS procedure, a slice is taken and examined, and if the margins aren’t clean they take another slice and repeat until they’ve got all of the affected tissue. After I got the all-clear, they gave me more numbing shots and stitched me up. The surgeon has cosmetic surgery training, so he and the assistant were able to smush my face together enough to sew a flap over the wound and secure it with about 10 stitches. I go back in 2 weeks to check on the healing.
I won’t lie, when the numbing meds wore off it stung like a wicked bitch. I had regerts. I wanted to get in a time machine and slap my former self every time she walked outside without sunscreen. I wanted to slap myself ON the sunburns to really drive home the point.
The real kick-in-the-pants right now is I’m slightly congested and my nose wants to run. I can’t blow it, so I’ve resorted to rolling up Kleenex and stuffing it in the nostril as to not to disturb the healing. I’ve got meds, I’ve got a nasal irrigation bottle from when my husband had his deviated septum worked on earlier this year, and I’ve got a humidifier for my bedroom. Still…
Last night I got to remove the bandage and do some damage control. As a piercing enthusiast I have bottles of saline spray on hand which helped loosen up any crusties, and as a tattooed person I have plenty of Aquaphor to protect the wound. 24 hours later it’s pretty gnarly. Definitely looks like I brought my face to a knife fight and lost.
Today it’s itchy, which is a good sign. Itchy means healing! It also means slapping my own hand every time I reach up to attempt to relieve the itch.
Fun fact: I now have something in common with such famous people as Hugh Jackman and Christie Brinkley!
I’m very fortunate that my BCC was small, that it was easily resolved, and that whatever scarring that remains will be easily disguised by makeup (or that 2nd nose piercing). But now I must dedicate myself to the Ultimate Victorian Goth Lifestyle ™ when it comes to my skin, as I’m now much more likely to develop more BCCs in the future. Aunt Francis style floppy hats (iykyk), caftans, parasols, sunglasses, perhaps somehow acquiring a permit to be on public beaches after sunset, taking lessons from HexBaby on Insta on how to be a “Domestic Vampire”, buying stock in various sunscreen companies (and doing research to make sure what I put on my skin is environmentally friendly!), giving thanks for my husband’s good job and access to insurance, and remembering to slather myself whenever I leave the house.
So, my wish for everyone in the new year is to be kind to yourselves. Drink your water, take your meds, go for walkies, keep in touch with your chosen people, fill your enclosure with all manner of enrichment…
And trust me on the sunscreen. 😉
Bonus! A picture of me as The Red Queen under the blacklight! Spooky, unsettling, and you can see the line at the top of my fivehead where the sun damage starts!
Coming up: A look back on what I worked on last year, and what I hope to tackle this year!
The Velvet Alchemist 