Corn Chips and Garlic Cottage Cheese Dip

Cue 35: Show some skin (name your scars):

I have a scar of my left temple where I rolled off the edge of my bed and into my white enameled nightstand. I stumbled out of my bedroom where the babysitter shrieked over the blood and pressed a cold washcloth to my head. No stitches, just a puckered circle of skin, which as I’ve gotten older has moved away from my temple toward my hairline.

I have a number of tiny circle scars on my arms and legs (probably about 5 in total) from a particularly horrifying incident when I was 12. I was playing tag with my brother, his friends and a friend of mine in a vacant lot across the street from our house. I jumped over a log and stepped on a yellow-jacket’s nest. I was stung 31 times. My quick-thinking grandmother was living with us at the time and poured me a baking soda bath. I pulled the stingers out one by one, wincing and sobbing with the pain and the swelling. My mother came home with Benadryl and when I woke up, my father was home with ice-cream.

I have a small straight-line scar on my hand near my right wrist and a similar, but much longer scar across the upper part of my right arm, from a particularly playful cat with claws. I love these scars, they are the ones I’m most fascinated by.

I have three scars on my belly and lower abdomen, from my appendectomy in 2000. One is a half-circle inside my belly button, the others trail down to my hairline.