Don't flinch (it's only pixels)

Three weeks ago, when my head contained only snare drums and snot, I felt cold and decided to light the wood-burning stove. Since I was not fit enough even to climb into bed, this was a bad idea. I burned my hand.

Please keep reading.

For the past week I have been thinking about the 35-year-old who has just had a face transplant. After his accident, when he was 20, he lived 'as a recluse, avoiding eating in public, and shopping for groceries at night'. I can't imagine being deprived of daylight through fearing reactions to the way I look.

I have also been thinking about the journal entry I read some time ago by a fellow-blipper who'd had a mastectomy, saying she no longer felt like a proper woman.

My burn wasn't serious and it's nearly better but I didn't post it last week because I knew that as it was then it would upset people. On someone else it would have upset me too. I think 'upset' can be good - it's an expression of empathy - but I'm now wrestling with thoughts about how feeling upset about 'deformity' - whether visible or not - constrains those people for whom it's not pic-cells but body-cells.  

So, despite being tempted, I haven't cropped/shopped my 'unfeminine' facial hair in this image. One small step.

(This is my contribution to this week's word - 'awful' - but it's not the image that's awful.)