I call it the Nose Funk. I don’t know what the Nose Funk is or how it migrated from outer space and onto my nose…my nose which, you know, already has some issues. It’s not a cute little button ski-jump kind of nose. You know when Anne Shirley got that third hand compliment about her nose and it assuaged her fears that she would be forever homely? Never happened to me. It’s been described as “fleshy and bulbous,”my nose, and I think that’s pretty charitable. My nose has been known to enter the room moments before the rest of me gets there. Occasionally I have had to pay for another ticket for my nose at the movies. So it’s really unnecessary for this nose to turn bright orange, don’t you think? There’s like this big patch right on the tip of my huuuuuuuge nose. It’s bright orange. No, I’m not going to take a picture. I don’t want to give you nasally-oriented nightmares. You’re welcome. Oh, also? The orange patch drips little driplets of yellow goop. Which have formed a sort of horrid crust. Just on the orange patch though…the rest of my nose’s acreage is relatively fine, comparatively.
I ruined it, didn’t it. You’re totally going to have nightmares now, pictures or no.
I’ve called the doctor’s office and asked for some more of this unguent thing I’ve had since early 2000 which doesn’t work all that well, and they told me no, I need to come in and have the Funk checked out in person. Okay. So I’m going to leave early and go see my beloved Dr. Gail (the one who sits you down, fully clothed, to talk for half an hour before she investigates your nether regions with The Device when it comes time for That Appointment) and hope that she can either a) give me a new tube of the mysterious and no-doubt-by-now-expired-unguent or b) wave her naturopathic wand and tell me it’s stress related or something and that what I need is a nice massage, every week. If she opts for Plan B she should also make my insurance company pay for it, I think. Only fair, if she’s going to go about the business of making miracles, right? She might as well go all the way.
At the very least I want this to go away tonight because I know all my co-workers are looking at my surreptitiously, thinking to themselves, “Well, her nose already looks a little pumpkin-like, but Halloween was like, last week and it’s just a little weird, with the dripping and the crusting.” And you know there’s a lunar eclipse or something this weekend and I’m pretty sure my horoscope would have something unhelpful to say about exposing Nose Funk to the light of the moon, or something. Plus Carl is going away for two weeks and I don’t want his last glimpse of me to be a gigantic orange blotch superimposed on a little teeny crying head with fuzzy hair. That’s what I feel like right this minute, as if the Funk is slowly taking over my body and that I’m just this little appendage that carries the Funk around and feeds its gelationously disgusting self with leftover chicken chow mein. I exist at the Funk’s pleasure.
I sort of think that the Funk is somehow stress-related, but the thing is that I don’t feel that stressed right now. I feel mostly sad and tired and mopey. Could the Funk be corporal manifestation of seasonal affective disorder? Does the Funk need more fresh air and natural light? Could the Funk be a sign from above, telling me to relax a little and get out and play more? Maybe the Funk is some sort of cosmic doctor’s note, like “Chiara can’t have this difficult and passive-aggressive conversation today. Her nose is bright orange.” Should people be catering to my every whim, out of fear that the Funk may re-appear, and that they themselves, should they get out of line, may be Funkified? I mean, I’m sure this is catching. You wouldn’t want to cross someone like that, would you? No. You’d probably go get her a nice chocolate truffle, just to stay on her good side, woudn’t you. Such is the Funk’s terrifying, drippy orangeness. I mean, EW.
So maybe this could work out to be sort of a good thing. I can think of a couple of situations right now, right off the top of my head, where the Funk could come in handy. Maybe I should cancel that doctor’s appointment and work it for all it’s worth. Fear me! I am The Funk!