I know, I know. I haven't done it yet.
But I want to.
And believe it or not, it isn't vanity. Well, maybe a smidge. But there are other, more important reasons I'm contemplating a few sessions with my favorite carcinogen.
Firstly, my state of mind. I am getting myself into a major funk, and it is directly related to the dreary weather (perhaps with a side of sleep deprivation, THANKS TEDDY). When I wrote about being spoiled by this winter, I was very focused on temperature -- but the fact is, I don't mind a cold day when the sun is out and the skies are blue. This article today in the Post-Gazette today made me realize... it isn't the mercury falling that bothers me so much. It's the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad cloud cover.
Three months of 25+ cloudy days PER MONTH gets a little old after awhile.
Now, to be clear, I don't think I actually, clinically have seasonal affective disorder. Like I said yesterday, and I wasn't lying, I'm generally a happy person. But every year, around February -- and I don't think I'm at all unique in this regard -- my patience wears a little thin and I have a lot less energy. I basically feel like curling up under the covers with a loaf of bread and a block of cheese. Even moreso than usual.
Oh, and I constantly dream about sun and warmth. I stalk Hotwire and Travelocity for trips I will never take, to places like Puerto Rico and Spain. I wonder why the heck we live in Pittsburgh, or anywhere above the Mason-Dixon line. I even start romanticizing places like Athens, Ohio and Washington, DC -- places within driving distance that might get even 5 degrees warmer and 5% sunnier than the chilly, wet, gray wasteland I think I live in right now.
And because our trip to DC is currently two weeks away -- very close, but ohsofar too -- good old Anytime Tans down the street is starting to look mighty tempting.
Secondly, and much less importantly, it would be cheaper to go tanning two or three times and get a modicum of color again than to replace my foundation, which is starting to look a tad orange against my "you're probably tan in the summer but you just look sallow in the winter" skin. Slightly cheaper. Perhaps I should look into less expensive makeup?
I know it's stupid to go lay in a tanning bed, getting blasted by cancerous UV rays, hoping that the high-school girls working there properly sanitized the surface that you're now sweating on, profusely, just like the last 100 people to lay on it. With no clothes on. Even typing that out gives me the willies.
But I think I'm going to do it anyway, a few times. When I went tanning last year in the late summer/early spring before our wedding, I felt a lot better leaving the "salon" than I did walking in. Even if it was sleeting and the skies were dull gray. Even if there were 33 days left until the official start of spring (not that I'm counting).
Plus, I still have a $40 bottle of Designer Skin Aphrodisiac Seductive Tanning Intensifier to use up from last year. Classy, huh?