Unbecoming Sunblock Insulation

In the wake of a spectacular snowstorm in the East Coast, spectacular for someone watching it on tv in a sweltering living room, I've decided to post my summer experience. In three words: sunblock, unbecoming, and insulation. Or for those mad-hatters out there, always trying to come up with cool band names: Unbecoming Sunblock Insulation. Rcknrll.

For the past twelve years, I've been coming to Chile in the summer with my family. Within two days of each visit, I'd break out into a gnarly rash. Everyone laughed it off as my sensitive American-First-World-skin (what?) reacting to fleas. Since living in Chile this past year I've broken out at least once a month. My latest outbreak was on a sticky day, where my knee swelled up in a panic trying to escape the constrictive fibers of my teacher pants. I was promptly taken to the dermatologist by my motherly-cousin-roommate, who laughed it off as "la pica de los extranjeros" or what First-Worlders get when they come into contact with Third World bugs. Had my mind not been consumed with fantasies of calamine lotion, I would've wimpered "But the First and Third worlds no longer exist. The Cold War is over. THEY...ARE...CONSTRUCTS!" Instead he gave me an ointment and an allergy pill and sent me on my way, complimenting me on my white wide-brimmed churchlady hat.

I wear a white wide-brimmed churchlady hat everyday in Santiago because we're all being fried by the small hellbanger UVA and UVB rays. Growing up in South Florida I had a complex, Margaret Mead-worthy tanning ritual. A bottle of SPF 4 tanning oil, applied for the first 90 minutes; a bottle of orange glitter gel applied for the final 90 minutes; and a bottle of tea dumped on my hair for good measure. I now wear SPF 60. Everywhere. Even under my white, wide-brimmed churchlady hat. On my toe knuckles. On my palms.

The thick white chalk of my exposed limbs would be bearable, if edifices only had insulation. There's no insulation in Chile. No lovely Pink Panther rolls of fluffy, yummy insulation. The cool of the evening disappears into the hole in the ozone at daybreak. Air conditioners run all day, foolishly cooling Swiss cheese walls. Punches in the wall will have no padded savior.

So what's unbecoming? The clothes people wear in the summer. All the beautiful people have gone to the beach. What remains is a painful parade of lycra and panty lines; neon on neon; hammer toes. What's the point of summer if no one dresses for it.

All this is temporary. In March it will be fall. People will be forced to wear more clothing, which will hopefully translate into layers of lycra, thus no panty lines; dreary grays in place of neon; and no hammer toes. But insulation remains elusive. And for those of us skiing in July, SPF 60 is there to chalk us up.