My mother once told me that Southern girls don't sweat; they glisten or glow, perhaps even perspire, but never sweat. If that's the case, then when I garden or hike, I glow like the meltdown of Three Mile Island in a torrential downpour. Beads of "glisten" roll down my face and head so that I'm walking around with my own personal rainstorm, like a Douglass Adams character.
As a poster child for autoimmune diseases, one of my many health joys is dealing with the daily annoyances of Sjogren's Syndrome, a disorder in which the immune system attacks the moisture producing cells in the eyes, mouth, etc. This means that I often have ridiculously dry eyes and can't produce enough saliva to swallow food without additional liquid. Sadly, my "glow" producers seem entirely unaffected. Where is the logic of that? It seems like I'd at least get some positive out of it, but no, sweat continues in epic quantities.
Perhaps I should reexamine my very Southern-ness. If I sweat, does this mean I'm not a true Southern girl? Does my father's Pennsylvania heritage somehow taint my background and induce excessive moisture? Oh, the horror!
Some of you, who knew me from Seattle, may ask if the decay of true Southern-like gentility was a result of the 20 years I spent in the Northwest. If only. From the earliest days of 4-H camp and biking to the swimming pool, Linda + Heat = Perspiration. When you add Activity to the equation, we're back to nuclear meltdown.
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