Nozema, on the other hand, is in mourning

I stopped taking hormonal birth control in January in preparation for Operation: Damn You Vagina, Swallow, Don't Spit and the skin on my torso, though pasty-white and semi-scarred, certainly has not erupted in the violent display of porous infections known as "truncal acne" that I feared it would.

Therefore it is obvious that my hideous brush with Backne from Hell during the winter of 2008-2009 was definitely due to the miscarriage of baby Gage. At that time, in the MONTHS following the miscarriage, I hypothesized that my mortifying skin condition was a combination of my terrible genes (inherited from my mom) and those very same hormones (laugh! cry! laugh! growl! cry!) which caused the Backne from Hell. My poor torso didn't begin to heal until I started taking birth control again.

This time, I not only quit suppressing my periods (which I've done for a decade, give or take), but went off of the pill entirely, I can assure you that there has been NO lack of emotional bipolarism, and I assume my rapid shifts from raucus laughter to inexplicable weeping is due almost entirely to my crazy-ass hormones that are now free to course through my body without the barrier of ortho-cyclen to block them.

I may be fucking crazy right now, and I may cry with joy if you tell me your morning poop was shaped like a banana, but I can assure you that every zit on my body is visible on my face.

And that's something.