Monthly Archives: January 2014

In which our plucky heroine triumphs over her arch nemeses

Actually, this post is about eyebrows. My eyebrows, to be specific. It’s the saga of one woman’s struggle to get these damn things looking right, finally.

Here’s my story:

The evidence was there all along. Looking at the old photos, it seems inevitable: my eyebrows would become the bane of my existence with their propensity to propinquity and their flamboyant excess. It took me a mere 60 years to find salvation at the hands of an eyebrow wizard named Erica. Hallelujah!

The facts:

Exhibit A. Even in first grade, the signs point to excess browage.

trouble begins

Exhibit B. By second grade, the left and right are on a path to meet in the middle.

second grade brows

 Exhibit C. By 7th grade. . . we have contact! The Golden Eyebrow Spike!  How many different directions can these hairs grow? I earn the sobriquet “My Wild Eyebrows Rose.” (My sister reminds me of this every now and again.)

7th grade brows                                                  The horror, the horror

 

Exhibit D. One strategy: If you can’t beat ’em, hide ’em with bangs. (Never mind what I had to go through to get my bangs this straight.)

hidden brows

 

Exhibit E. High school shaping: Wrong, wrong, wrong.

high brows

 Exhibit F. The too-thin backlash. If only my hair could hide them.

thin brows

 Over the years, through thick and thin, I tried electrolysis, waxing, and even more draconian measures to ward off “unibrow” and settle on a reasonable shape.

Exhibit G.  No, the perm doesn’t help either.

perm 2

I was never really satisfied, but basically gave up on achieving the ideal arch I’d been searching for most of my life. I mean, while doing other things and actually HAVING a life. . .

And then, about a year ago, I asked a friend with lovely brows what her secret was. Hers were tamed, well-shaped and just right for her face. “Benefit Brow Bar,” she said.

And those three little words changed my whole look–and my outlook.

The nice young woman at Macy’s coached these rebellious brows of mine to regrow in the right places, and she’s been keeping them in shape for me ever since. I use a Benefit product  to keep ’em in line and fill in a few thin spots. No more wild eyebrows for me!

It’s a little win, but one I’m very happy about.

current brows 3Ta da!

 

Rain!

My little Angelino grandson hasn’t had that many chances to get down-to-his socks wet by splashing in a rain puddle. We really need more rain here in California. I hope that perhaps this image will jog some cosmic memory about what should be happening in our much-too-dry state these days. Rain, rain, rain. . .comeContinue Reading

A true friend, a good choice

I’m participating in a blog hop today. The subject is “The best advice you ever received from a friend.”   A little background first. I met Carol when our kids were in kindergarten. Her daughter and my son shared the same classroom, and we met on a day when the parents had been assigned toContinue Reading

Let us now praise headstrong women

I first met Erin Lindsay McCabe at Saint Mary’s College of California. We were both in the MFA writing program; she was in the fiction group, and I was in creative nonfiction. Because we were in different disciplines, and she was in her second year when I came into the program, our paths didn’t crossContinue Reading

My new (blog) house

Time for a new start. At last, I’ve moved beyond Zero to Sixty and Beyond. It’s a new year, so I’m starting over with a shiny new (almost finished) website that will eventually be the one-stop shop for whatever writing I’ve done so far: articles, blog posts, books, Ms.Barstool updates, etc. I hope you’ll beContinue Reading

One hard question. No easy answer.

I think about it at this time of year, because it’s when my daughter asked me a question I wasn’t prepared to answer. She was barely four years old. My Grandma Eve died on New Year’s Eve in 1981, and my daughter heard me talking about it with my husband. There was to be aContinue Reading