DESICCATED

Dry skin. Dry lips. Dry mouth. Dry hair. So dry inside my nose that it bleeds.

Dry, crunchy brown grass outside everyone's houses.

Peeling shoulders. Cracked heels. Flaky cuticles. Itchy ankles.

Always thirsty.

Weeks of hot weather has dried Seattle right up. There's nothing we can do except suck on ice cubes, sit in baby pools, take cold showers and roll cans of chilled San Pellegrino across the backs of our necks.

What the inside of my nose looks like.

Image by Max Wolfe via Wikimedia Commons

I remember sprinkling coconut on oatmeal in Edinburgh back in 2009. The packaging read: "Flaked, desiccated coconut". It was the first time I'd come across the verb "desiccate"—I'm sure you remember where you were when this happened to you—and I asked Andy what it meant. He said it means to dry something up.

From that point on, I spotted the word desiccate in tons of places. There's a name for when that happens: the Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon. Read all about it and other cognitive biases if you want to start being smart instead of dumb.

Aaaaanyway, I'm off track. Does this have anything to do with the fact that I've sleep deprived? Yes, yes, a million times yes.

TLDR: I have dry skin.

Goodnight,
Margaret

P.S. Check out this kid at the Edmonds 4th of July Parade. WOW, I forgot. I forgot how American Americans can be. The parade also featured a fleet of vintage army jeeps—everyone stood up and clapped.

I pledge allegiance!