Even when I was much younger and thinner I suffered from inner thigh heat rash. Often so bad that the insides of my upper “skater’s legs” would end up painfully bleeding. I used to try to avoid this by carrying around small travel-sized talcum powder thingys and whip into public toilets to slather powder all over my inner thighs to keep them from going totally raw. After a while I discovered that I could buy curious “slips” that were made to wear inside trousers, which ended up being “trouser slips” and helped prevent chafing.

This past week we went from May (22º) to July (34º) in about 48 hours. Not so much a heat wave as a heat punch-in-the-face. And this morning I woke up with totally raw and painful skin on my inner thighs. Fuck.

I thought about going out to find a pharmacy that might have some sort of soothing skin ointment that might help bring down the inflammation. Then I remembered that years ago I bought a bottle of pure aloe vera gel, but couldn’t remember if I still had it. And then I remembered that I have a whole whack of aloe vera plants up on my terraza! So I whipped up there with a Big Knife, cut off a spike of aloe vera, and commenced slathering the goo all over my unhappy skin. We shall see if it gets better soon but even after a couple of hours it looks and feels much better. Coolio!