I went to an Obama rally and all I got was this lousy 3rd degree sunburn

Obama is vacationing on Oahu this week. He arrived on Friday. The night before, I got an email from his campaign informing me that an impromptu rally was going to be held at a park not too far from where I live.

This was big, because since Hawaii is so overwhelmingly in the "D" column, and Obama's from here, after all, nobody campaigns here. We don't even get campaign ads on TV, except for the ones broadcast nationally (like with the Olympics). I decided to go.

But I was either so excited or so exhausted (insomnia is back, big-time -- I'm catching lots of Olympic soccer games at 3 in the morning) that my brain completely stopped functioning, because I went to an outside event, in the middle of the day, in an open park with very few trees, in the heart of summer, with no hat, no sunscreen, and only one small bottle of water.

This is not like me. I am crazy careful about the sun. Not that I avoid being out in it, but when I surf or go to the beach or whatever, I always wear a hat and at least 30 SPF, and when people come to visit I nag them constantly about making sure they're protected.

But there I was, arriving at 11:30 for a rally that didn't have Obama scheduled to speak until 2:30. And there's a massive line to go through security. And it's 87 degrees and there isn't a cloud in the sky. I finish my water by 11:45, and then stand in the sun and bake.

What I could feel as it was happening was the burning on my shoulders. I was wearing a sleeveless blouse, and I could feel the shoulder facing southwest getting redder and redder as the day went on. So I would turn around and cook the other side, just so the one side wouldn't be in so much pain.

By 2:30, everyone was inside the barricades (it was a huge crowd, and all the more impressive for the fact that the event was scheduled with only a day's notice). There was a breeze, but the closeness of the crowd made it feel hotter than it was. I was thirsty and hungry and hot and feeling weak, and my shoulders were burned and stinging.

Then came the announcement that Obama's plane was late (he was coming to the rally straight from the airport) and he wouldn't be arriving for at least 45 minutes.

I couldn't do it. I felt like a wuss for bailing, but I seriously felt like I was going to pass out. And when I got home, I realized that it wasn't my shoulders that bore the worst of the sunburn. It was my face. My nose was blistered and my forehead was stinging and my cheeks looked like I had painted them. I had to stay inside all weekend, dousing myself with aloe gel and downing ibuprofen. After two days, my nose has moved past the blister phase and is now covered in scabs. Needless to say, I'm crazy attractive.

(my disgusting sunburned nose. in addition to the scabs, you can also see the bright line where my sunglasses were. all of this adds up to Wendy=dumb)

The worst part was, I never even got to see Obama.

I don't know how, but I blame McCain.