“My Face, My Twitch and Other Things” by The Cowsills

I guess everybody notices things about themselves that their friends and loved ones just don’t observe.

Here’s what I notice:

This is called “facial droop.” It is a side effect of Botox treatments I take for a hemifacial spasm, which is a delightful burden in which an overactive nerve behind one of my eyes causes twitching that gets so bad it substantially hampers my ability to speak clearly.

So I have to get the Botox because it makes it possible for me to be on the radio. And I can’t live without radio.

But the Botox gives me facial droop, which I hate and am embarrassed by. I mean, my face has always been kind of a trainwreck anyway…the last thing I need is this droop that makes people think I’m drunk, or had a stroke, or had a stroke while drunk. Oh, and it also makes people think I’m perpetually bored. I was at an event this past weekend and somebody came up and said, “You look so BORED!” Yeah, well that’s what happens when you can’t make a real smile. I used to make real smiles. Those were the good old days.

So all this was rolling through my mind this morning because I had a Botox appointment today… and as the hour drew closer I thought, “God damn it!” (I use profanity in my inner thoughts. I should have provided a content advisory at the beginning.) “I’m not going! I wanna see if another three Botox-free months will get this face back to #$%ing normal.” (I censored that last one.) You see, I’ve been told that if I stopped taking the Botox, my face would undroop. Eventually. In months.

But cooler head prevailed. (I only have one skull, you see.) I went to the hospital. I went to the place where they give me the Botox. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand they did not have the Botox. You see, there are two kinds of Botox: the “make you look like Tom Cruise” Botox and the “fix your spazzy nerves” Botox. They forgot to bring the spazzy nerve kind. So, I will go in August and see them. And maybe, just for a week or two, the droop will go away. If you happen to be near me when such a droop hiatus is happening, try to be patient if I spend minutes on end taking selfies.