Thoughts on feminine upkeep

I believe Bridget said it best:*

“Being a woman is worse than being a farmer--there is so much harvesting and crop spraying to be done: legs to be waxed, underarms shaved, eyebrows plucked, feet pumiced, skin exfoliated and moisturized, spots cleansed, roots dyed, eyelashes tinted, nails filed, cellulite massaged, stomach muscles exercised. The whole performance is so highly tuned you only need to neglect it for a few days for the whole thing to go to seed. Sometimes I wonder what I would be like if left to revert to nature — with a full beard and handlebar moustache on each shin, Dennis Healey eyebrows, face a graveyard of dead skin cells, spots erupting, long curly fingernails like Struwelpeter, blind as bat and stupid runt of species as no contact lenses, flabby body flobbering around. Ugh, ugh. Is it any wonder girls have no confidence?” (Bridget Jones's Diary)

She is true about all of those things, but today I'm just going to write about hair removal. Which, for a fuzzy, could-be-in-the-musical-Cats person like me, is enough to make up several blog posts. It's a good thing that I'm blond(ish), except if the light hits me the right way I resemble an angora puppet. This is why, in a fit of high-maintenancessity, I bought a CityDeals voucher good for up to 12 sessions of laser hair removal on my lip and chin. I know one day a full goatee is in my future, but I would like to stave this off as long as possible.


My fourth session was this morning, and the state in which I rushed to the appointment just confirmed to me the necessity of such vain extravagance. While brushing my teeth beforehand (the one act of hygiene I performed today, you are WELCOME, hair laser removal technician) and also trying to fend off the Dark Lord who had just realized that oh my gosh Mom has a teething toy that also buzzes and when will it be his turn to play with it, I noticed something. Due to the natural light coming in from the bathroom window, I appeared to be wearing the forearm of a scrawny Scandinavian male. Awesome.


Also? I kind of hate that the only mirror that lets me know just how very overdue I am for some eyebrow management is the one in my car, on the visor, while I am tweezerless and on my way to something like work where I will frighten the children with my Muppet caterpillar eyebrows. Or to the laser hair removal place where everyone can raise their own well-manicured brows at each other and wonder who this woman is and why does she not groom herself.


I had to prep for today's session by taking ibuprofin and also by filling a baggie with frozen peas so I could smash the thing to my face to try and numb the area while I drove to the salon. Normally the whole procedure lasts less than 5 minutes and only stings a bit in the most sensitive spot, like on the center of your upper lip. But last time was so very painful that I was twitching and squealing like a person being stuck in the lip with hot needles. (Am still unconvinced that's NOT what was happening.) I kept telling the technician I needed her to turn it down, that this was much, much, more painful than usual, and I think she thought I was maybe being a big ol' wuss. Also, I don't think she really turned it down.  I was squeezing back tears. Unmedicated transitional back labor didn't make me cry, but this girl with her laser gun did.


Today, though, was better. I don't know if it was the drugs, the frozen peas, or that I had a different technician today who did not come to work straight from Hell, but I am grateful.


Anyone care to share the price you have paid for beauty? (Or, you know, maybe for just not-caveperson-ness?)




*Oh my gosh there are actual BJD study guides you can buy on Amazon. Seriously? Does that mean that there is, like, a class on it now? Because I would take that class. Or teach it. Either way.