Ladies and Gentlemen, "Reverse Raccoon Syndrome" finally has a name. I actually went to the dermatologist and had my pale-ass skin looked at. Well, that's pale skin, not actually 'pale-ass' you know what I'm saying?

I have Vitiligo. What's Vitiligo? He's the villain from Ghostbusters II.

Vitiligo is also what is commonly known as "Michael Jackson Disease," because Vitiligo helped turn him from this

into this


Luckily there were other contributing factors, like him sawing his nose off a number of times and also going slowly insane. Also, I do have the added benefit that I'm starting off significantly more pale than he was, meaning that I have a lot less distance to cover before I'm bone-ass white.

Will I actually turn into some pale, ghostly monster? There's no way to tell. They don't know what causes Vitiligo. And they don't know how to cure it. The options are these:
1) Some steroid cream that might work. (OK, check.)
2) Some stronger steroid injections, then putting my hands under UV lights three times a week in my doctor's office for years. Possibly effective, possibly not. (Umm... not so much 'check' as 'pass.')
3) Skin grafts (pass)
4) Makeup(pass)
5) Artificial tans. (we'll go with pass)

Oh, and I forgot: the other thing they recommend is to get down on your knees and pray to the sweet Christ above that you don't get huge white splotches all over your face. You know, they say prayer is effective, and from what I've read it's probably about as effective as these steroid creams. I will try them anyway, because having white circles around my eyes means that people ask me why I have white circles around me eyes, and if the possibility exists that I wouldn't have to deal with that anymore, I guess that's worth the trouble.

But, truthfully, I don't actually care that much. It's hardly noticeable when I'm not in the sun all of the time, and even when it is noticeable it's the realm of 'mild inconvenience' not 'precursor to painful death.' I'm hoping it doesn't spread much more, but it's completely out of my control. If it does spread, I'll just tell people that I got hideously burned saving people from a burning boat. Or one-up myself and say that I saved a class of children on the Roosevelt Island Aerial Tramway from being dropped to their death by a flying billionaire dressed in a green Power Rangers suit.

Either way, the improbable may happen: I may get even whiter than I already am.

The news from London this morning has put a knot in my stomach that feels all too familiar. I've been sitting at my desk, trudging through the menial tasks my job requires of me, with tears streaming down my cheeks.

I've received e-mail from the staff at Tisch London, and all students are safe and accounted for (as are families of all the employees). I've heard from a friend, studying at NYU in London, that all those students are safe and accounted for as well. I have e-mails in to my other friends in the UK--some of whom live in London--and am waiting anxiously to hear back from them.

This feels like March 11th of last year, and like September 11th of 2001.

Everybody was so good to New York when we desperately needed the support. The tributes and vigils were comforting to me, even as I cowered in my dorm room. The messages and goodwill that came pouring in made me feel connected to other people in a world where it suddenly seemed like safety was impossible. It's not that it hadn't occurred to me before September 11th, 2001 that something *bad* could happen to me, but that that particular morning the truth was knocked into sharp focus. No longer blurry at all, and suddenly the everyday began to seem dangerous. When the bombings in Madrid happened last year, it affected me too. I require public transportation to get to work, and if that was a target in Madrid, it can certainly be a target here.

It's very, very hard to see reports coming out of London that look and sound so much like the reports coming out of New York three and a half years ago. I lived for a short time in the center of London, very near where these attacks took place. Where, of course, I relied upon public transportation. As for terrorists, I think they're aptly named: they have me terrified.

I've long been afraid of flying, but it's only gotten worse in recent years. Every single nightmare I've had in the past three and a half years has been airplane related. But I continue to get on airplanes (as I am going to tomorrow, for a trip home to California). I can feel the knot in my stomach growing more intense as I think about my commute home tonight, in rush hour, on a crowded subway line.

When the shootings at the High School in Santee, California happened in March of 2001 (again, I used to live near there), my brother struggled with how to express his sympathies. In one of the most moving statements I've ever read, he ended with

...let us hope for, and work to construct, a world in which eulogies for murdered children never get a chance to become trite.

With that in mind, I echo the statements sent to us on that tragic day in 2001: Today we are all Londoners.

Hold fast, London. Our thoughts are with you.