OMIGOD! I'm As Black As You!

Let today be my final lesson in "Do not go out in the sun without sunblock on. Ever."

When I'm at home in Los Angeles, I apply sunblock religiously every morning, rain or shine. However, because the sun doesn't feel as strong here in the Midwest, I've really been slacking over the past five weeks.

I went to the beach today with my sister, and I forgot to have someone apply some SPF 45 to my back. Thanks to my lack of vigilance, I presently have some serious lobster action going on. It hurts to even lean against the back of the chair I'm sitting in, and I've already taken some Tylenol because it hurts so much.

The result of all this fun-in-the-sun without my loads of sunblock is that I now have a serious suntan. I'm not exactly psyched about this suntan, although my angst over this is not because I'm afraid of my skin getting darker. No, it's because I can be really freakin' vain and I don't want my skin to look like I'm 45 instead of 35... at least not until I am 45. Then I'll be perfectly happy to look like a smashingly hot and intelligent 45 year-old.

I have to tell you, all the information about the damaging effects of the sun is clearly going in one ear and out the other of the general population. Every beach I've been to this summer, whether in Santa Barbara, Chicago, or today's fab experience in New Buffalo, Michigan, there are dozens and dozens of folks out there frying themselves.

Don't these folks know they do not possess the "black don't crack" genes? (Or, if they do, they don't have much to speak of.) I mean, I see these burnt umber teenage girls out there in these skimpy bikinis, strutting along the edge of the shore like they're on America's Next Top Model. Don't they know that their faces are going to be looking like all hell broke loose in another twenty years?

On top of my "You're so vain" issues, I still can't help but think about the racial undertones of suntans. I used to get annoyed by white high school "friends" who'd come up to me in the summer and say, "Wow, we're the same color now, aren't we? I can't believe how dark I am! OMIGOD!!! I'm as black as you!"

Some version of that still gets said to me every single summer. And to this day, it sometimes feels like folks are "trying on" dark skin while being able to hold onto their white privilege. People go on and on about how "good" their tan or someone else's tan looks. But they'll have no black friends, not even someone who's just a light bronzed tan color. Or if they do, I'm that one black person.

Back in high school, I always kind of wished one of those super-tan white "friends" would magically find herself in the type of situation where suddenly the newly acquired "blackness" didn't fade away in the Fall along with the greenness of the maple leaves. I mean, if tans didn't fade, would people still be roasting in the sun?

These days? I still think about all that, but, in true Angeleno style, I think about wrinkles and skin cancer more.

And, speaking of Angeleno's, this time tomorrow night, this here Angeleno will be nursing my massive sunburn at home in Los Angeles! Whoo hoo!

I'm pretty much all packed except that I can't find the memory stick that I keep my fiction writing on. I saw it four days ago, haven't written all weekend, and now it's GONE. Not good! So cross your fingers for me, say a prayer that it returns and that I have a safe flight.

I'll see you tomorrow after I'm home.