As befits my life, I have “problem” skin. By problem, what I really mean is nightmare. Clearing my face of pimples, red blotches, rashy redness and itchy bumps is, essentially, my hobby. Allow me to overshare.

My forehead tends to break out in…bumps. Summer, winter –it doesn’t seem to matter. And my nose seems to literally absorb every environmental toxin there is. I need only walk past an idling car at the great Hampshire Mall, the mall of my childhood, and my suction cup pores will inhale the exhaust fumes and I will have Poppy Seed Nose.

My neck is awful and the back of my head is worse. In fact, the back of my head, along with the sides, almost resembles one of those, uh,hotrods with flames painted along the flanks I have even thought of having the area inked in flames to distract from the nasty, inflamed texture. The texture? Like Braille.

It makes me completely crazy because nothing I do seems to help. And it’s not like I haven’t tried. Here’s a partial list of fine brands I have purchased and used over the last year:

1. DDF

2. Dermalogica

3. Clinique L'Occitane

4. PerriconeMD

5. Murad

6. Lancome

7. La Prairie

8. Kieh’s

9. Dior

10. Dr. Brandt

And within each brand, I would try like five or six products. So my house is literally filled with beauty products, as if I am the vainest man in the Northern hemisphere. And with five memoirs to my name, it’s possible that I am. Nonetheless, nothing has helped my skin. To be fair, these are excellent products and within each line I found specific products that worked for me, to some degree. DDF’s “Eye Erase Gel,” for example, has, I believe, removed any trace of “fine lines” around my eyes. It’s either that or the fact that I almost never make facial expressions or go into the sun. I exist in my basement with my dogs and my laptop and an assortment of sugar-free beverages.

Then, one of my best friends (we’ll call him “Andrew” here) got a job as a writer for Dr. Hauschka Skin Care. Before he even got the job he started to research the brand, reading everything he could about the company, the products they manufacture, how they manufacture them. Andrew is an intense guy. And when he takes on a project –whether painting pictures of crabs, walking the dog or accepting a new job, he applies himself fully. So probably three days after he started working at Hauschka, he was telling me, “You need to try…” and he rambled off a list of products, their ingredients and why each one was right for me.

Now, I am not unfamiliar with Dr. Hauschka. I have seen their products in the local health food store since I was a teenager. Back then, it was a little too pricy for me. But the larger issue was, why use a NATURAL product when you can use one that is SCIENTIFIC? Which is what I still believe and exactly what I told Andrew. “I don’t want that 1970’s goo on my face. I might as well wear an avocado paste mask to bed, adopt a cat and become a lesbian.”

Andrew insisted that Dr. Hauschka products were not only “scientific” but smarter than these “cosmeceutical” products I was using.

Meanwhile, a dermatologist diagnosed me with rosacea and I thought, thank God.

In general, I love having a diagnosis. Suddenly, it wasn’t just about me being crazy and vain and addicted to beauty products; I had a real medical condition -like Acute posterior multifocal placoid pigment epitheliopathy or Paramyotonia congenita of Von Eulenburg syndrome.

I felt I should be hospitalized immediately but instead the doctor prescribed a cream and sent me on my way. The first thing I did was admire the packaging of the medicine, which was authentically pharmaceutical and not merely cosmeceutical : Helvetica type, a tube made of metal alloy with a screw top. There was even a clinical, 1950’s logo on the side and a WARNING on the back. It came with a multi-page pamphlet. I loved it. I felt my face begin to clear.

Except? After being on the cream for a week, my face really hadn’t cleared up. He’d also given me some “gentle” face wash, the kind that resembles semen and doesn’t foam –quite unsatisfying. And this gentle cleansing-semen seemed to make my face break out in more actual pimples.

So I had essentially given up and was one belt-sander away from taking matters into my own hands when Andrew got his job at Dr. Hauschka and turned all evangelical.

The main thing he wanted me to use was this product called Dr. Hauschka Normalizing Day Oil. First, he said, wash your face with the “cleansing milk” and then use the “oil.”

Now. I may not be a biochemist, but it just seemed ridiculous for me to wash my face in any kind of “milk,” only to then apply an oil. Let alone an oil modified with the word, “day.” If one is going to apply oil to one’s face, one certainly doesn’t then want to go out in public, glistening like an overly-moisturized entertainment Lawyer form L.A.

Andrew rambled on and on about why, philosophically and scientifically the oil made sense. I paid no attention whatsoever. As far as I was concerned, Andrew had gone to work for the macramé vest of beauty companies and he’d consumed their Kool-Aid. I felt certain he would soon shave his head and begin carrying finger cymbals. A hanging spider plant may, I worried, be in his immediate future.

But I was rashy and bitter and without hope, so I drove to Whole Foods (in my Volvo wagon) and found the menstrual sponge aisle. Beyond this was the “natural” beauty care stuff. The Dr. Hauschka consumed an entire section, apart from the other items. Its display was, I felt, reverential. I bought one of everything.

That evening, I used the cleansing milk fluid. This, I thought, is like washing my face with tahini dressing. And then I grudgingly applied “a few drops” of the “normalizing” oil. I think before I did this, I sprayed my face with the useless-seeming botanical toner. And I also applied some “Daily Revitalizing Eye Cream” because my eyes looked grave-dead and needed to be revitalized.

I worried about oil stains on my pillowcase but the oil did, to its credit, seem to penetrate into my skin rather quickly.

Utterly certain I would wake up the next morning with my forehead a blazing constellation of pimples, I became flat on the bed and lost consciousness.

The next morning I padded into the bathroom and brushed my teeth without looking in the mirror. And then I looked in the mirror, bracing myself against the skink.

A miracle had occurred. In the night, Jesus had taken the wheel. My face was clear. I don’t mean my face was “improved” or “less appalling.” I mean my face was as smooth and lineless as porcelain. I looked like Christy Turlington’s brother. I looked like what the British call, A Glamourmodel.

I tried to conjure an image of this Dr. Hauschka. I visualized a very-attractive woman with creamy skin, board-certified in multiple specialties and unfurling a jib sail on her sailboat off the coast of Greece at that very moment. I mouthed the words, “Thank you, doctor.” And then I nodded, which was the subconscious equivalent of a curtsy before the queen.

I immediately sent Andrew a text message. He wrote back, “I knew it would help you.”

I have been using these products now for a couple of months and the only time I have experienced a facial de-rejuvination relapse was when I was forced to use hotel-supplied beauty products while on my book tour. Honestly, I don’t understand why this stuff isn’t being paraded across the front page of The New York Times.

Thank GOD, Andrew went to work for Dr. Hauschka. I have since started using their Hand Cream and also their Neem Nail Oil and I love it all and will kill myself if they take even one of their products away. And I want more, more, MORE. I want them to open a beautiful, sun-drenched space with soaring ceilings where other users can get together on Sundays.

You know? I was loving me some Canada. I felt like a Mexican mule dragging my pile of logs up a sandy hill as I went from one studio to the next; from interview to interview and yet? The journalists and on-air hosts were so kind and forgiving that NOT EVEN ONCE did anybody say, "You look almost dead," or, "gee, thanks for coming up to Canada at the very end of your tour and with an unshaven face and adult onset acne. Real swell of you." No, they were always offering me cans of things to drink, handles to grip and solid vertical to lean against. And I did notice today, because it was over one-hundred degrees and everybody was dressed in the bare minimum, Canadian guys have THICK calves, the kind we have to have surgically implanted. And the women -my publicist, Lisa, being a perfect example- seem to all have perfect skin. So this is a city (Toronto, in case I haven't said that enough) of some very sexy people. And yet here's the interesting thing: thin or beefy, it didn't matter. There is a certain sex appeal to the people here that has nothing to do with body fat percentages and everything to do with just good old fashioned charisma. Which seems to be pumped into the water up here. On every street corner there's some sort of little music, film or art festival. There were people riding contraptions for breast cancer, to raise money for a new hospital and various other "betterment of society" activities going on all over the place. It's just a good-natured place and the people seem sunny, but not silly. I was thinking, I could totally live here.

Like I was saying, I was loving me some Canada. Keyword: was. Until I came back to my hotel room at the end of the day and saw that management had slipped this note under my door:

It says, in part, "We wanted to let you know that a pair of Canadian Peregrine Falcons have made the top of our building home for this nesting season...this species is endangered...although we do not want to limit your use of the balcony...the female falcon is very protective of her home...and can be aggressive toward perceived threats." Here is an image of a Peregrine Falcon that apparently perceived a threat or maybe, on the other hand, was just a little bored and bloodthirsty:

In other words, a savage and predatory bird is holding the building hostage and we're not allowed to kill it, so you have to keep off your balcony or it might decide to swoop down and fuck you over. And by the way? Don't expect us to deal with your facial lacerations or bloody garments or dead babies, because WE WARNED YOU QUITE POLITELY . Sound familiar?

Exactly. The Four Seasons -and Canada by association- is basically saying, "Gosh, Tippi, there's a phone booth just down the street...maybe you'll be safe there. That is, if the gas station doesn't explode." In New York City, if some tyrannical form of Nature came to "nest" on top of a residential structure, there would at the very least be satisfying lawsuits and swift settlements. But most likely, somebody would just shoot it with their pearl-handled "summer" handgun or the city would "address the issue" with a pound of ground turkey laced with rat poison. But I can tell you, there is not the slimmest possibility that any Manhattanite would be expected to risk tens of thousands of dollars worth of "facial rejuvenation" surgery, countless Botox injections and a six-hundred-dollar Sally Hershberger haircut for the sake of some "endangered" chicken. I say, if it's already "endangered" then something about the thing isn't working -natural selection has MADE ITS SELECTION and the bird is obviously an outdated throwback to an earlier, more savage era. We should just let Darwin go ahead and kill the rest of these awful things per Survival of the Fittest -nature's machine gun. Why do we even need such a heinous creature threatening our civilization? Don't we have enough to worry about? Terrorism? Media bias? Toxic Shock Syndrome?

For the love of God, what has any harmless guest at a Four Seasons Hotel ever done to deserve being told, essentially, "Lock yourself in your room with your Louis Vuitton bags and your ninety-dollar duty-free perfume and close the drapes -IT has landed on the roof again and if IT sees you, well, just don't let it see you!"?

I, for one, will not be bullied. Not by anyone, anywhere at any time. And most CERTAINLY not by some BIRD. Which is why, after photographing the letter with my Blackberry so that I could post it in all its alarming detail on my BLOB, I tore the thing into shreds and crumpled it into a ball which I then tossed into the etched-brass trash canister beneath the glass-topped wood desk. Then I stomped around the bed, unhooked the lock and opened the glass slider to the (dark, circa 1970's) balcony and walked outside. I leaned my (pointy, bony) elbows on the rough cement surround and looked down eleven stories below me to the pool. It was empty. This morning when I had stepped outside onto the balcony (oblivious, of course, to the ominous warning that would arrive later in the day) I had seen people in the pool. There had been a man with a blue bathing suit. And a few moments later, there had been a woman with her hair knotted atop her head. Not supermodels. Not movie stars. Just people. Just people outside in the morning sun, going for a quick swim before or after a breakfast which probably included fresh orange juice and maybe steel-cut oats. Hardly folks that deserved to die or receive severe head injuries caused by a "bird of prey" with "sharp hooked bills for tearing at flesh" and "long, pointed wings" which enable them to be "much more agile than other raptors."

But now, with this carefully worded letter hushed under every door of the hotel, each guest barricaded inside the room -terrified to even look out sliding glass door, let alone open it- the pool was empty. And nobody was sitting in the lounge chairs. Or at the tables on the other side of the pool. In fact, the very air itself seemed eerily still.

And then -may God strike me dead if I am making this up- I heard something crack or shift above me. Perhaps somebody was outside on their balcony a floor above me, also defying the "Dear Guest," letter. Maybe they had moved their chair. Or maybe it was somebody from building maintenance installing a new child-safe lock guard. Or who knows? Maybe it was just some Canadian sound I'm not accustomed to. But I will tell you this: I did NOT wait the fuck around to figure it out. I hauled my ass back inside the room, slammed the door and locked it. Then I tested it to make sure the lock had engaged. And then I dragged the heavy curtain across its track so that I couldn't see outside. Then I moved to the the other window and closed both drapes there, too. And then I decided, I'm just going to stay here until the car comes tomorrow to take me to the airport.

I had planned on taking a walk later in the evening -past the cafes and restaurants, the little stores. I had planned to be out among the people. But screw that. Now I would sit in the room (with the five candy bars I bought to LOOK AT ONLY and NOT EAT) and update my BLOB and then go to www.hulu.com and watch the Battlestar episode that I missed last week. And I would just wait for morning. When a glorious MD-80 aircraft with two falcon-shredding, feather-spewing jet engines would restore me to America, land of the free and home of the brave. And also home of the not very brave and the emotionally crippled.

DISCLAIMER:

And you know what else? Do NOT send me earnest emails about how beneficial "these birds" are "not only to Canada's national heritage but to the earth's community of wildlife." I DO NOT want to hear from The Canadian Peregrine Foundation unless it is with an invitation to speak at their annual "Raptor Roast" cookout. And NO, I also do not need to hear from people who think I hate animals (wrong), nature (wrong) or Canada itself (WRONG). Most of all, I do not wish to be "joined" in the elevator by six or seven beefy "Guest Relations Managers" from The Four Seasons Hotel to "discuss" any "distress" the "courtesy letter" may have "caused." Because I am not distressed. I am simply afraid of nature -when it invades urban areas- and perhaps somewhat over-excited about my upcoming appearance at:

THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE PRINTER'S ROW BOOK FAIR this Sunday, June 8th. The event is SOLD OUT, and "Check-in begins thirty-minutes prior to this program only. Selling and signing of books takes place after (the) program and is open to the public."

So. Canada? After all is said and done, I really could drink a case of you. Birds and all. Thank you so much to my publicist, Lisa, the gracious media who made me feel so welcome, the event coordinators who worked so hard and MOST OF ALL, to my amazing CANADIAN FANS!

And to the sixteen year old guy with red hair and some serious tape-work on his headphones? Like I said, just write. And read. But just write. You ALREADY ARE. That is my answer to your first question. YOU ALREADY ARE, DUDE. How do I know if I don't even know you? Because I JUST KNOW. That's how.