MedSpa

The last time I took a Xanax was in Los Angeles. My boyfriend drove me home from Beverly Hills while I peeked out of the cracked window like a chihuahua, wind in my hair as we coasted down Sunset. I nodded along to the song he was playing and didn’t think about the directions. I had an empty girl head and slumped my liquid body against the door in comfort, my man at the wheel. I had a facial girdle wrapped around my head. I had gauze under my jaw. Something was draining out of me.

That was a couple of years ago. Today, I got Botox in TriBeCa. The kind woman asked me to sit down on top of parchment paper and gave me a hand mirror. I recoiled — “Oh no, nothing for my face,” I said. In the interest of journalistic integrity, you should know that I do not have any fine lines or wrinkles. I am twenty-four and Italian and addicted to sunscreen, if I must explain further. But part of me wanted to see what she would suggest. Certainly, I thought, it must be some kind of clinical or ethical violation to offer to freeze a face that is already, mostly, smooth.

I am not a great candidate for facial Botox. Here’s what I am a great candidate for: microneedling, chemical peels, general liposuction, cankle reduction, hair transplant surgery, veneers, laser hair removal, lymphatic drainage, and more things that I am probably not yet aware of or have not yet been invented. The previous list of procedures has been curated for me, specifically, by a medical professional. They gave me the rundown after my treatment in LA, right when the benzo was kicking in. It was sort of like when you finish a YouTube video and are directed to a menu of other options.