One subject left from my beach experience deals with the legend of the Pale Blue Scot.  As most of you know, the name of my blog (along with my email address) comes from a Scottish comedian in the 1990’s who would say “…and they can kiss my pale blue Scottish ass”.  With a good chunk of my heritage based in the Scottish highlands, the complexion of my skin has always been an issue in the summertime.

As a kid I tried to tan, as it wasn’t exactly cool to be “pasty” but I would always overdo it at the beginning of summer and wind up burning my skin to the point where it was almost too painful to sleep.  Besides the inconvenient pain of being sunburned, it’s also gross to peel that dead skin a few days later.  Yuck, yuck, and more yuck.  It wasn’t until after college when I finally realized “Dude, be proud of your heritage and accept the pigmentation you are destined to have.”  After that, life’s been a lot easier in regards to not trying to tan and simply not caring that I can’t pass for a Sicilian.

It’s not that I avoid the sun; heck, I try to be outside as much as I can but I dress appropriately and wear sunscreen when necessary.  I’m proud of not being leather-skinned and one summer away from carcinoma.  By no means am I an albino and I’m not about to star in Powder II.  It feels good to be comfortable in one’s skin and not try to emulate what everyone else is obsessed with.  As for the ladies, I have always failed to see what is attractive about someone who has baseball-glove-colored tan skin and pasty white naughty parts.  It’s as if they glow in the dark which I guess might be good if you’re fornicating in a cave.  To me, that kind of major skin contrast is an unsexy as a fat woman eating fried chicken in a thong lip synching to My Humps.

Anyway, I had a heckuva time making sure that being on the beach for 4 days didn’t completely wreck my skin and ruin the Palebluescot Persona.  Sunscreen was applied liberally and hats and t-shirts were worn when possible.  There is one exception I make to this rule.  As much as I can understand guys wearing t-shirts in a pool to either not get sunburned or to cover their Torso of Shame, it really does look stupid.  I think a t-shirt on the beach is acceptable if you’re not in the water but take it off if you’re going to swim.

Thankfully I can report that Operation Keep James White was a success and there is no sunburn or peeling sun which is an amazing feat seeing how much I was on the beach and in the pool.