Hello.

Wow, that was awkward. And…I already know the rest of this whole post is going to be awkward too, mainly because the school year is almost halfway through and I have yet to blog.

I’m sorry, okay?

Times are tough. There are cross country races to finish, college apps to submit. Remember that I can’t write weirdo blogs for the rest of my life.

But don’t worry, bloggers, I’ve already been harassed daily by the STA student body. Texts, Facebook chats, and even physical assaults from readers whom I didn’t even know existed have knocked some sense into me.

So, here I am, two months too late, writing my first blog of the school year. But don’t worry, it’s definitely a HOT TOPIC.

Picture this: You, reaching into your ear to scratch, but instead feeling a bump. Or two. Or five. No, you don’t have bread crumbs wedged in your crevices or mosquito bites between your folds. You have blackheads.

And, if I may add, for every bump you feel, you have three more blackheads under the surface.

I know; I’ve shocked you. I know it’s disgusting. And I know that as you sit in Mr. Whitney’s room during a 7/8 free reading this blog on your netbook, you are cracking up with your friends and making fun of me, saying: ‘Oh my God, I’ve never even heard of that. I totally don’t have those in my ears.’

Well stop that, Colleen Corcoran. We know you’re lying, and deep down inside your soul you can’t wait to read on and figure out how to get rid of those dirty black heads in your ears. Stop hiding and just admit it.

You have blackheads in your ears. But it’s okay…we all do.

If you’re sitting there, baffled and wondering what the heck a blackhead is, let me enlighten you.

According to Wikipedia, blackheads look like small yellowish or black bumps or plugs in your pores, and are caused by too much oil in the skin. Though blackheads generally appear around the nose or chin area, they can occur in other locations, like the ear..

I’ll never forget the time I found my first blackhead. There I was, sitting in Ms. Hernon’s Pre-Calc class last year, itching the inside of my ear. My fingertips made circles around each fold, until they stopped at the smallest crevice between my ear fold and the side of my head. I felt this ball thing, this weird, hard, and huge ball inside that little crack. So, naturally, I clamped my nails around it and ripped that little rascal out of there. I stared at what was lying on my fingertips’”a yellow ball, similar to one that would emerge from a popped pimple. I couldn’t even scream, because I knew Ms. Hernon would kill me. So instead I flicked it away and tried to forget about it.

It wasn’t until XC 2010 that I realized that it wasn’t just me suffering from the embarrassing ear blackhead angst. In the weight room one day before practice, I realized that a friend (who will not be named for confidentiality reasons) had a huge blackhead in her ear. I looked to the right and saw another teammate’s ear speckled with blackheads. I confronted them about their blackhead problems, and somehow we formed a bond over the fact that our abnormalities were actually the norm. It became our obsession to seek out blackheads on other people’s ears, wrestle them to the ground, and try to squeeze them with our fingers.

It became too hard, however. Our fingers were way too big to fit inside someone’s ear. Even worse, some of those nasty little buggers were wedged all the way into the ear canal that there was no way of getting them out.

Don’t fret, people, I’ve got you guys covered. When we hit this obstacle, I did what any girl would do: I asked my dermatologist for some advice.
She said that blackheads in the ears are totally common. We get them from bacteria build up and lack of cleaning in those little crevices.

Want to get rid of them? Here’s how to do it.

Step 1. PREVENTION. Try using some of these.

Clean the inside of your ears daily. Adding a drop of rubbing alcohol wouldn’t hurt either.

Step 2: TERMINATION: Get those suckers out of there, ASAP. How, you may ask? The possibilities are endless. I’ll list the three, most successful ways.

Finger nails. Get those little guys in there, or ask a friend to for you, and squeeze around that blackhead until the yellowish ball pops out.

Fingers too big? Resort to my personal favorite method: the bobby pin.

Push down on either side of the blackhead with each end of the bobby pin until you successfully pop that little ball out of there.

If money seems to grow on trees for you, do what Jan-Ma (aka my dermatologist) told me to do. Invest in one of these suckers’”they’ll become your new best friend without a doubt.

No matter which method you prefer, make sure to wet a damp cloth and apply it to your blackhead before popping, to open the pore and make it easier to squeeze the dirt out.

That’s all I can really say about blackheads. Hope this post was up to your wEirDo standards. I’m a little rusty so I don’t harass me and just take it for what it’s worth. And one more thing:

Yes, if you catch me staring at the side of your head, I am indeed staring at the blackheads speckling the inside of your ear canal. And yes, I will remove them for you. All you had to do was ask.

Xoxo,

wEirDo