I’ve made a bold decision and I’m not even drunk. I’m going to forgo some of the TV makeup tomorrow. I mean, I’ve always felt any makeup at all on this dewy young face of mine is gilding the lily, in fact I used to so frequently refer to it like that that when I would duck into the bathroom at Time Out New York before going on TV my coworker Ethan would say, “Are you gilding the lily?”

I mean, I’m still going to apply the individual fake eyelashes to the outer corners of my lids and I’m still going to pinch my cheeks for a rosy glow. And yes, I’m still going to burn a cork over the spit and then rub the soot around my eyes to make them stand out more and I’ll probably crush up some bugs and rub them on my lips and soak onions in a bowl overnight and then make soup but I’m not going to use the TV foundation, so if I appear to be a freckly mess, that’s why.

Not that I really have that many freckles though. In fact my complexion is somewhere between perfect and flawless, but who knows what could happen on the walk from the train to the paltalk office. For all we know I could sprout freckles. Can you say for sure that it won’t happen? I didn’t think so.

Dear Bug,

I’m sorry I felt the need to stand on a step stool and spray you directly with Raid Ant & Roach killer in “country fresh” scent. You were neither an ant nor roach, in fact I don’t know what you were, but you were disgusting-looking and uninvited basically, and NYC is a cutthroat place. Perhaps you were one of those “good bugs” that harness their insect powers for good—eating bad bugs, donating your time to very small soup kitchens and building tiny homes for larva? If so I feel terrible, however how am I supposed to know? It’s not like you spoke up when I came for you. You just sat there, stuck to the wall with some kind of tentacle/antenna thing. And by the way, bug, perhaps antennae have served you well over the million years you and your kind have persisted, but they aren’t serving you well in my bedroom. I suggest something cuter. Like a very tiny set of rabbit ears. Or a wee Groucho Marx nose-and-glasses getup. Everyone loves a bug with a sense of humor!

I’m sorry too that when I sprayed you, you became affixed to the wall surrounded by a puddle of bug spray. You were like the head of a moose on the wall of a log cabin, only you were an entire bug on the wall of a New York apartment. I’m more sorry, though, that I thought it wise to walk away after watching you for a time, so sure was I that you were a permanent wall ornament, because when I came back you were missing. The truth is that I have no idea where you went and it’s not for lack of looking. I even considered trying to stick something roughly bug size where you sat on the wall and then make that thing fall to see where it would go. But I didn’t because I can’t reach that spot on the wall which is how we got into this mess to begin with.

And finally, I’m sorry the makers of Raid Ant & Roach spray in “country fresh” scent were forced spend time in a country that smelled so strongly of insecticide.

Alison

Please stop biting me. Thank you.