The One With The Never Ending NeverEnding Story References

So, you may have noticed that I'm trying to be more "natural," and live as chemical-free a life as possible. If I haven't mentioned it, then let me say now that at times it has been completely overwhelming.

I feel like Atreyu from the NeverEnding Story, wading through the Swamps of Sadness to see the ancient and wise Morla, only to have my faithful steed sink into the mushy-gushy mire and for Morla to sneeze weird swamp turtle boogers all over me while being completely unhelpful. If anyone followed that, ten cookies for you, good person!

Turtle bogeys. Ew.

So, as you can glean, it's been a process. One I have been flailing through at great speeds of failure. But! But! Glimmer of light! I'm heading to a naturopathic doctor next Tuesday, and hopefully she can guide me like Falkor to the Southern Oracle! (Oi with the NeverEnding Story references already!)

I am all a-twitter with hope that she will coax my skin into being skin again, instead of gnarly seborrhea, comedones, papules, pustules, and nodules. Yes. Sounds pretty, no?

I'm actually heading to D.C. this weekend with some friends, and, while excited, I am also terrified of the cameras they surely will bring. I usually jump at the chance to make the weirdest, I-didn't-know-you-could-do-that face possible to be captured digitally and live forever throughout the annals of time, but...alas, my self esteem has taken a hit (and my face looks like it did too. Of shrapnel). Still. I can't wait, as it's the first real trip I have taken with friends. I'm, like, totally an adult now, guys!

The three of us met in Italy, and we're going to D.C. during the Italian Festival, so that's just pretty much fate, isn't it? If Signor Clooney is there at the same time, I will faint. Actually, no, I won't, but I will yell, "Dov'e Signor Clooney?! George! Dov'e George!?" much to the displeasure of those around me. George Clooney was essentially the patron saint of our study abroad experience. Everywhere we went, there was George. Whether his playful gaze watched over us from a billboard on high, he peeked his cheeky visage out from between the pages of a foreign magazine, or we stumbled across some random establishment named "Cafe Clooney," George was always with us, guiding and protecting our passage.

So, if it just so happens you see a crazy girl on the news, ranting and raving in Italian about 'Signor Clooney,' with a face that looks like an IHOP waffle filled with strawberry syrup, chances are that's probably me.

This is my face. And don't you forget it.

Which, should that happen (and just to keep this post's title honest), I'll be placed in an Ivory Tower of my own, will believe the characters in my books are talking to me and start wishing on a grain of sand. Oh what fun it shall be!

The end!