INFORMATION THAT WILL NOT SAVE YOUR LIFE

My apartment mate speculates about situations in the dermatology videos she is currently watching. It was bad enough when she was Amber Heard and Johnny Depp obsessed, but this is almost intolerable. She wishes I were severely afflicted so that she could experiment. And she fondly remembers my evil twin skippy (a sebaceous cyst) that went all wanky and necessitated a visit to a dermatologist. Is that area acting up yet / again? No, no it isn't. Stay away with that prong. Desist, crazed laboratory woman! I shall not tolerate any poking!

People far down on the spectrum either have rich inner lives, OR obsessively learn about things to the point where they are either tediously repetitive or absolutely dangerous. Ask me sometime about India, Malayo-Polynesian languages, Asian food, pipes and pipe tobacco, or fruit bats (chiroptera pteropodidea, NOT the indie rock band). For instance.

No, woman, I am NOT going to look up the potential uses of rare champagne as sacramental wine at mass while you watch pimple popping youtubes, I am not that interested and do not need to know, as the idea of wasting good plonk on random drooges is not part of my plan!
Just open another browser tab and do your own research.
Flip back and forth between windows.

In between exclamations about sebum and purulent drainage, she makes little bird sounds.
I am not like that early in the morning. Some minor grunting perhaps while I prepare my first cup of coffee and fill my pipe, then I silently stumble out into the arctic blast of a wintry dawn for a walk and a smoke, while the juices start flowing and the hydraulics of limbs and joints wake painfully up. Mornings were not made for pustules and papules.


Mornings, as every Dutch American male knows, and the people who live in the same digs should realize, is meant for hot coffee, scratching, a first smoke of the day in a favourite briar (perhaps a fine Virginia Perique blend), and quietly contemplating man's inhumanity to man, the urge pet dogs have to poo when the world is dark and asleep, and the peculiarity of Cantonese American women who have queer obsessions.

That walk with my pipe is, in fact, what I shall be doing in a few minutes. When I come back, perhaps the pimple video watching session will be over. She's taken the day off, so I must be outside at various times to smoke, and will probably head over to Chinatown for Hong Kong milk tea, a snack, and people who are not fascinated by keratin and sebum.
Well, they could be, but thank heavens they don't talk about it.
And you'll understand that I haven't asked.




GLOSSARY

Cyst: 囊腫 ('nong jung').
Free fatty acids: 游離脂肪酸 ('yau lei ji fong suen').
Lipidosis: 脂沉積 ('ji cham jik').
Papule: 丘疹 ('yau chan').
Pimple: 粉刺 ('fan cik').
Pimple, pus-blister, boil: 癤 ('jit').
Pustule: 膿皰 ('nung paau').
Sebum: 皮脂 ('pei ji').
Squalene: 鯊烯 ('saa hei').
Triglycerides: 三酸甘油酯 ('saam suen gam yau ji').
Wax esters: 蠟酯 ('laap ji').



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