A SMALL-SPOTTED MAN

It's been cold and raining the past few days in Los Angeles. Today the sun came out and things warmed up. There's a cool breeze, but not enough to actually make things brisk. Regardless. During lunch I walked to the nearby outdoor mall in search of the bookstore. I had perusing on my mind. Not halfway there I felt the hives bloom under my shirt. It felt like really bad static, like my skin was incredibly dry and my shirt was incredibly charged. Little missiles of pain shot from my immune system into my bloostream. My epidermis responded in kind, and my hair bristled. In those lonely dark days when the hives originally plagued me, the first part of my body to turn bright red were my forearms. As I walked down the street to the bookstore at the mall, I turned my palms up and waited to see the little pimples bloom.

Unfortunately, I got all of the pain and none of the pleasure. Like picking a scab, there is a certain satisfaction in seeing the hives cover my skin, a visual justification for the pain itching underneath. Once I got inside the store and settled down, the sensation subsided. On the return trip, though, my blood boiled and I took the shady route. Slowly.

This is just further evidence that the hives are induced by weather. Cold weather front comes in and my body adapts. Then it gets warmer and it freaks. Exercise or prolonged time in sunlight only exacerbates the condition. There has to be a reason for this, and the fact that no one has been able to figure it out means that the medical establishment is full of a bunch of dicks, or a bunch of stupid dicks.

And ladies, if you kept me warm at night, thus helping me maintain a perpetual inner degree, I wouldn't be having this problem. Do your best for science, and for the good of [a] man(kind). Oh Judy Budnitz, how I long for your well-written and oddly intriguing embrace.