I was just standing in front of the bathroom mirror smoking a cigarette.

I was just standing in front of the bathroom mirror smoking a cigarette. I was doing three things: admiring the shape of my own nostrils when my head is tilted back, digesting eggs and beans which are both synonyms of testicles (because of their shape, see. But mine are eggs) and thinking about this dance performance I just saw, a troupe of tangoers from Argentina. I was thinking three things about them: how fucking awesome it is to be part of such a misogynistic, macho culture, how amazing it would be to move like that, and how those women are so muscular and so feminine with incredible legs, tiny waists, and perfect breasts. I leaned closer to the mirror after tossing the cigarette in the toilet. I did this for two reasons: the sink is the perfect height to massage my swollen testicles, and because I want to get a better look at this cyst on my neck that has grown alarmingly during the past month. There are two reasons why it has grown: there are several ingrown hairs that will not pop out of the skin no matter how much I squeeze and pinch and pull at it, which is the second reason it's grown so big. Today, this drama ends. For good. My girlfriend has 3 pairs of Tweezerman tweezers stashed in a bag under the sink. I think those are the ones that have some sort of lifetime guarantee, where if you send them in they will sharpen them and mail them back, which is probably why she has three pairs, to stagger them since the turn-around time is so long. Today, I choose the hot pink pair.

You have to understand that this is no ordinary cyst. It is old, callused, and tough. It has resisted the many efforts to peel, to drain, to pluck. So far, I am undaunted. Peeling back the top, dry layer, something like a head of a zit is visible, so I try to squeeze. The thing is, the inside is not liquid, or pus or anything like that. It is rubbery, definitely a solid. Squeezing brings me nowhere, but my mom calls right then. "Talk talk talk Jesus talk praise the lord talk talk you shouldn't live with a girl before you're married talk talk talk Jesus god Satan hell talk talk 1st Corinthians 13 talk talk your girlfriend is Jewish talk talk why don't you find a nice Mexican girl talk talk" for half an hour. I'm still squeezing at this thing. "Uh huh, uh huh, yeah" I say. I need two hands though, to really get at it. "Gwee lohv jou veddy veddy moch, eh? See jou een Chreesmas! Dreed jour Bibuhl eveddy day, eh? Adios te quiero mi vida" she says as I hang up. Christ, I'm bleeding now. I jab at it some more with the tweezers and then take a tissue to soak up the blood so I can see what I'm doing. I'm actually making good progress, better than before. Maybe the last session a week ago weakened it's resolve.

fuck there is a mouse ON MY FLOOR RIGHT NOW. Just walking around! Good thing we're moving soon. I would kill it, but I love rodents. I had like twenty gerbils when I was a kid. They were all named, creatively, too. There was the Mother and her lover Ralph (who was a nice tawny color) who reproduced twice. Ralph nearly starved to death because he had no food bowl, and thus, naturally, I was never reminded to feed him, never actually seeing an empty bowl. He ran away. Then there was the Gray One, the Sister, Buckminster, and Stalopikus. I couldn't tell those last two apart, but anyway one of them ate the other one when they got older. Probably forgot to feed them. After that, the surviving one turned mean. Later, there was Murphy, Crooked Tail, and some other one who all lived together. I forgot the names of the all the rest. They're all dead now anyway, may they rest in peace.

I can actually see the cyst now under all that skin, rubbery, like I said. It stretches when I pull on it, but it doesn't come out. Hang on, I'm going to get a drink. ...Rum, aged, Angosturra 1919, of Trinidad and Tobago. It's ok.

Finally the tweezers get a good grip on the thing, and I pull it out. Nice! I can see it, clutched between the tweezer's jaws. It's not as big as the one I pulled out of my chin two weeks ago, but there is still a palpable sense of relief. Yes, I had another one under my chin until recently. It sucks. I shouldn't have to shave. My beard is curly, and I get ingrown hairs way too often. I wonder how black men deal with this. Probably some trade secret that is shared in code through hip hop videos and Fubu shirts. Why can't they let me in on this secret? What a bunch of racists. In any case there are three hairs under this cyst. *Under* it, and they were causing the whole problem! They're gone now, and basta. It's over. Just the cleansing power of pain, of rubbing alcohol on open skin.