Nothing humanizes like imperfection and there is nothing more imperfect than the human body. It's been the root of intra-personal consternation since the days of Eden, and we could easily spend our lives magnifying and whittling down every flaw, every asymmetry we find in Sisyphean games of whack-a-mole. And what's saddest of all, is that there are some who actually do that: whittle away until there's nothing left.

Sometimes, however, it's these very blemishes that scale the chambers of the human heart and find connections where they never existed before. Perhaps its mutual admission of cellulite, a la "Real Women Have Curves," that forms a relationship, or awkward charting of the migratory path of one's hair follicles. We see the sick in the eyes of our enemies, the mortal in the face of a stranger, and then suddenly they're nothing like who we thought. It's the stain that marks the human race, and like any such spot gives almost as much as it takes. It's not to fill pages that the National Enquirer includes a piece of
"celebrity flaws" every week. Their last issue was entirely devoted to it.

But the most serious flaws aren't topical. Beneath the mole or balding pate lurks a veritable litany of deficiencies that lay far beyond the scope of Rogaine or a stairmaster. I certainly don't have to go into detail here, there isn't person out there who hasn't experienced at least minor physical maladies. There isn't anyone out there who can't vouch for the absolute torment that is the imperfection of illness. I, myself have only had cursory dealings with lasting illness, the most prevalent of which was little more than an extended cold. Nevertheless, I recently discovered that my cholesterol level is a bit high. Now all I can do to keep from feeling completely feckless is eschew chocolate milkshake after chocolate milkshake and down Omega-3 fish oil pills.

High cholesterol, at least in this day and age, is the ne plus ultra of the cottonseed generation, and it is a self-consciously discomforting condition because it plays dangerous close to the "self-pity party," too many of us are so apt to have.  I keep wondering, what I did to poison myself like this? Was it all the chocolate milkshakes? I used to have one every Wednesday and Thursday night. Did I not ride my bike enough? What did I do?

To make matters worse, I hardly look like a Lipitor poster boy: I'm 5'9 and weigh between 125 and 130 lbs. Although hardly a twig, I really am quite thin, so I was beyond shocked when the lab tech (who in this case was my mom) informed me that I had 216 cholesterol level. "It's supposed to be under 200," she said. "Because you're so young, the doctor isn't prescribing a pharmaceutical at the moment." And that was it. Now, when I'm ate my mom's table for dinner, it's all salmon all the time, which is fine by me because I've always fancied icthyoids anyway. 

Still, there's nothing like being told that your life, while not being in imminent danger—I don't mean to make it sound like I was given worse news than I was—to place one's own imperfections in greater clarity. And no just of the physical variety. Now, when I see the infant wrinkles zigzag from the corner of my eyes, I also see my cold, unemotional streak. When I look at my spaghetti arms, I also notice my piss poor computation skills and my quiet impatience.  I see confusion in unruly hair and the class I had such trouble subduing in my unfashionable clothes.