Summer Stuff

Posted on July 9, 2018 by marey mercy

I’ve had a light summer of tutoring, with the past two weeks having no students whatsoever, so you’d think I would be busy taking advantage of all the free time to do things I don’t have time to do during the school year. But, you would be wrong.

JasmineFloral1

For the most part, I’ve been incredibly lazy, napping every day and sleeping late, while occasionally hopping into the pool. But I’ve had a few moments of activity here and there, just enough to keep me away from the blog, I suppose.

braids1

For starters, my older sister and I have taken a few little day trips over the past several weeks. It started when I was staying in a hotel during the last few weeks of our mold remediation; I figured since I was in a nice hotel and she and I both love hotel rooms, she should come on over and hang out with me for a while. She spent one night with me and we spent the day shopping at the nearby mall and eating in the restaurants surrounding the area.

Hallettsville1

I thought this was the town hall in Hallettsville, TX, but my sister thinks it’s a church. I still have no idea.

That led to us getting another hotel room in Clear Lake City so we could visit my brother, who lives in Dickinson, when he threw a graduation party for his two kids. It’s a long drive out to Dickinson from where we live, even though technically it’s all still “Houston” – especially since Dickinson is off the main freeway to Galveston Island and the party was thrown over a holiday weekend. Traffic is always horrible on I-45 in the summer, so my sis and I figured we’d get another hotel room, check in at the graduation party, and then spend another nice night hanging out in a hotel on the water instead of making two traffic trips in one day. I forgot my camera, though, so no pictures of that little jaunt.

Hallettsville2

Another Hallettsville shot

Most hotels were booked in Clear Lake for the weekend, though, and we ended up staying in an older Hyatt hotel that had a lovely view overlooking the bay, but had horribly thin walls and those old, adjoining rooms that I don’t think newer hotels even do anymore – and the first floor we stayed on was so poorly insulated and populated with small children that I swear my sis and I kept opening the door to the hallway to try to find out where the large gaggle of children was playing in the halls, only to realize that they were the kids in various other rooms that we were hearing as if they were right outside our door. We ended up moving to a higher floor, where they apparently don’t let kids stay, and that reduced the noise level quite a bit. But lesson learned, no more stays at the Clear Lake City Hyatt. It also must have been moldy, because after having no breathing issues for several weeks, I woke up coughing like a maniac the night of our stay, and it took me another week or so to recover. Moving on.

Hallettsville4

Then my sister wanted to go spend a few days in an incredibly tiny little Texas town called Hallettsville, which is where all these pictures are from. It’s a bit convoluted, but my aunt and uncle bought a tiny little country house there, on about 4 acres of land, where they plan to retire someday, and my sister, who is close to my aunt, has a key to go stay out there whenever she wants (I’m not as close to this aunt so I had never even been to this house before). Sounded like a nice free vacation to me, so we loaded up her car and headed out there for a few days in June.

Hallettsville3

When I say Hallettsville is small, I do mean small: Wikipedia lists its population as just over 2,000. Even though we were wandering around their little town square on a Saturday afternoon, there was still almost NO foot traffic, and I have no idea how anything aside from the factory supply store manages to stay in business there. The house my aunt and uncle bought is small, also – almost claustrophobic – but it’s actually a nice enough place to retire if you want some land and a Dairy Queen to visit on occasion. I was a bit fascinated by this little walkway leading up to their front porch though, and fortunately I’d remembered to take my camera so I could do some quick levitation using it as a background:

sidewalk2

That’s the walkway leading up to their house, and as you can see, it just sort of stops for no reason in the middle of the grass. I’m assuming someone at some point had intended to put in a driveway or something and then never did…? I dunno. But anyway, it inspired me as some sort of launching pad to a magical dimension, so there you go. The house is right behind me here, and you can see their little stretch of land with some decent trees and a pleasant view to look out over from the front porch. Not bad, if you’re into that sort of thing. Not sure I could do it long-term though.

Fun little detail: my aunt and uncle keep a golf cart on the property so they can tool around a little, and my sister loves to just hop on it and drive around on the grass, so we did that a few times. I am not as big of a fan of this, because I HAAAAATE flying bugs, and as soon as you start cruising around on the grass all of these CREATURES leap out of the grass and into the cart. So, my sis was really enjoying driving around and listening to me scream. Then, she accidentally ran over a cow pie (that’s cow shit, for those of you not familiar with the term) and it splattered all over my leg. Two more reasons I probably should not retire in the country: cow pies and flying bugs. Moving on.

nails

In other news, I have new little beauty obsession – fake nails, the kind you glue on and can buy at the CVS.I wore acrylics for years, but really got tired of all the filling and drilling involved, so about a year ago I had those soaked off and just got shellac manicures for about another year. But, since my husband and I are both wanting to work less now, I am trying to cut back where I can, and shellac manicures are rather expensive where I live ($50!). So, the last time I went to the salon I just got a plain old manicure and left it at that. But, not being one to just leave well enough alone, I decided to try out these Lime Crime “Pop On Nails” I saw on their site a while back. I’d never been able to try them before, because of the aforementioned acrylics, so I figured while I had naked nails would be the best time to try.

popon

I’ve never tried press-on or glue-on nails before, and I was actually nervous about how these would turn out. I held onto them for several weeks, but then my sister and I decided to make one more hotel trip out to the Woodlands to see Chicago and REO Speedwagon (shut up, I’m old) so I figured that was as good a time as any to give these a go. I was really surprised by how nice they looked. I had to shorten and file them a little because they were pretty long, though:

wine

I don’t drink; that was actually my sister’s glass of wine

I loved them so much I ended up buying all the other available colors of them I could find online (they were limited edition at Lime Crime) but before I got them all in, I discovered some nails I like even better – the ImPress brand you can get at any drugstore or even (in my case at least) the grocery store.

impress

I actually prefer these ImPress nails because they are much easier to apply, and they hold up better. The Lime Crime ones look amazing at first, but they have to be applied with nail glue and the first time I applied them I used WAY too much and spent about an hour melting them off my fingers with acetone. The ImPress nails actually have adhesive already applied to the nail, so you just peel the backing off and stick them to your nails.

Photo Jul 09, 7 42 03 PM

I have always had seriously wrinkly fingers! When I was a kid classmates would call me “granny hands.” Kids are assholes, BTW.

Both brands stayed on for a week (the ImPress ones are still on as I type this) but I must say that after a few days the color was starting to flake and peel off the Lime Crime nails, and every little scratch or scuff showed on the surface so that by the end of that week, they looked a lot worse for the wear. So far, the black Impress nails aren’t showing any wear and still look like new. I haven’t tried to take these off yet, so I can’t speak to how hard they will be to remove, but all the reviews say they are easy enough to do and I know I didn’t overdo it with adhesive this time. I’m so pleased with these nails, especially since the ImPress ones are easy to find, are inexpensive (around $7 for 30 nails) and are quick to put on. I never liked getting my nails done, although I do still get pedicures (ImPress actually makes press on toenails, too, but I just can’t go there), but I always loved the look of the acrylic nails, and these are a really practical and nice alternative.

newroomjump1

Another thing I’ve done recently is volunteer to be a Democratic precinct chair for my precinct. I do not yet know what this means, but there is a meeting for all of the Democratic chairs for Precinct 3 this Wednesday, so I’ll find out my duties then. With the mid-term elections coming up, I am sure it will entail a lot of phone calls and block-walking, which I do not look forward to, but the opportunity was there for me to fill an empty chair and even though I didn’t really want to do it, with everything going on right now I felt it was important to do it anyway. Especially being here in Texas, where so many of these immigrant families are being torn apart. By the way – our city’s mayor, Sylvester Turner, is awesome, and in no way supports these policies the Trump Administration has tried to implement and bungled so stupendously. He and our city’s police chief Art Acevedo are both very strong, progressive voices for reasonable immigration policy and gun control; Acevedo in particular has gotten a lot of attention lately for his outspokenness on both issues. Houston, even though it’s deep in heart of red, red Texas, tends to have Democratic mayors, and Fort Bend County – which is the county where I live – is statistically the most diverse county in the country. A lot of Fort Bend is more purple than red, except for – you guessed it – precinct 3, where I live, which is the reddest area out here. So block walking for the Dems should be an adventure. If I get shot, well, I can’t complain. I’ve had a better life than most…only partly kidding about this!

bossy1

I also discovered Venessa Arizaga’s jewelry lately, which, if you haven’t checked her out, you really should. I know a lot of her stuff looks insane, and her prices aren’t cheap, BUT the pieces look much better on that they do just sitting there against a white background, and if you get on her mailing list she has major sales ALL the time. I got a TON of her stuff during a recent 50% off all sale event, and things like that bracelet above I got for a steal. It was already reduced to $27 and I got it for 50% off that, when it was originally fifty bucks! I now have a ton of her necklaces and bracelets and they are just what I like. I actually don’t care for metal jewelry, and much prefer necklaces and bracelets made of leather or cloth material, which is pretty much her thing. And everything is made to be worn with other items and really layered together, like so:

floorseat1

It all is very light and works well together – although I will say, I bought one of her shell chokers and it was literally choking me; I had to buy a necklace extender just to fit it around my neck. That one also isn’t very comfortable; the shells are heavy and the material is itchy. But other than that, everything I have bought from her I’ve loved.

Oh, and I have a few other things I’m keeping busy with right now – for starters, I am really trying to learn Spanish, and so far am having little luck. I’m using Babel, and there a few damn verbs I just can’t get a grasp on (those damn ‘to be’ verbs are killing me) and trust me, if I were taking this as a class I’d be failing right now. But using the app is actually helping me understand what it’s like to struggle with English grammar and spelling, which helps me with my tutoring, so it’s all good, even if my Spanish never gets up to snuff.

The thing I am more excited about than that, though, is that I am learning how to sew. I haven’t officially started yet, because my sewing machine doesn’t arrive until tomorrow (I tried to borrow one from my mom but hers was broken), but I’ve got a good book to work with that jumps right in to working with simple patterns like making headscarves and simple skirts. I’ve been wanting to learn how to sew forever (I was forced to take sewing in high school, and in a fit of misplaced feminist rage I refused to learn anything. This worked against me because not only did I not learn how to sew but I failed the class, which was less than impressive on my transcript. I failed cooking too, for the same stupid reason). I figure that most of the clothes I love to wear are loose, light, and pretty damn simple; I dislike zippers and buttons and fancy details, I tend to wear things I can easily pull on and off, and I don’t even like to wear prints, so how hard can it be to sew this stuff? Plus, I have so many things I don’t wear but would if I could just alter them a little, and let’s not even talk about the COSTUMES I could create for my photos! I really think I am going to love this new hobby, and hopefully, I will be better at it than I am at speaking Spanish.

doubleme1

As you can tell, I’ve also managed to take some photos too – so this all sounds like I’ve been way busier than I feel like I’ve been. Especially when I mention that I am taking one more trip with my sister at the end of the month to Galveston, but honestly, most of these trips I’ve taken have been her idea, and she’s done the planning while I’ve just tagged along. I promise there has also been a LOT of nap-taking, TV binging, and Candy Crush playing going on this summer, too. In truth, I’ve actually started to get bored and look forward to getting back to tutoring my students again in August.

Oh, and one more thing – in trying to spend less, I recently opted to not renew a LOT of the features I’ve paid for in the past for this blog. I am honestly not sure what some of the stuff was I was paying for, so things might randomly go wonky here if I actually canceled something I should have kept. If that happens, I’ll figure it out eventually and get things back to normal. 🙂 It just seemed like I was spending lots of money every year for a blog I only post on about once a month now, so in a fit of frugality I canceled all the extra features. We’ll see what happens!

From Hair to There

Posted on November 3, 2016 by marey mercy

color7

Some of you may remember that I recently wrote about wanting to change up my haircolor again (because it’s been at least six months since I’ve inflicted any real damage on my tresses, which is unacceptable). At the time I wrote about it, I shared the following photo as my inspiration:

malaika_1

As you can tell from the pic of my fringe at the top of this post, I didn’t quite get there, but allow me to explain (and share more photos)!

color5
This photo was pretty unfocused originally, and I had to work hard to get some clarity out of it, but I liked the view of the haircolor so I made it happen.

The stock photo of the haircolor is from the Goldwell Color Zoom 2017 collection – my stylist had just returned from some big hairstyling shindig when I flipped through the Goldwell lookbook she’d brought back from the event while waiting to get my hair cut about a month ago. I’ve always wanted to do really crazy, unusual color, but I’ve never been able to due to the jobs I’ve held. Well now I work for myself, so I can do what I want – but I still wanted to ease into it and do somthing that incorporated wild colors but still appeared acceptable while meeting with potential clients or particularly judgmental family members (I actually don’t have any family members like that, in fact on my side of the family everyone will love it and possibly go out and get the same thing to done to their own hair – but my father-in-law, who isn’t particularly judgmental, also is not very fashion-forward, as you can imagine, so he might have something to say). So, I thought something like that photo might be a nice place to start, since when you look at it you see some wild colors but it’s so blended it comes off more interesting than outrageous.

color3
This photo is a total cheat; I layered a different picture of the bangs over this one because in the original photo they were parted in a funky way, and I actually layered a second copy of my hair over the first one because my hair is so fine and flat and I wanted to give it some volume. Terrible I know, but I couldn’t help myself.

You can see that the end result doesn’t look too terribly much like the advert photo, but that isn’t really a problem for me because I didn’t expect it to. I understand that photos I show a stylist are merely guidelines and that everyone’s hair is different and will therefore look different from a photo; not to mention that if anyone understands how much editing goes into a picture before it gets seen by the general public, it’s me, so there’s that. Who knows how many Photoshop and lighting tricks they did to get that much depth and and drama out of the original result. But my biggest surprise upon sitting down in my stylist’s chair yesterday at 10:00 AM to get going with this was that the Goldwell book, which included instructions regarding the proper hair dyes to use to get the look, did not in any way mention any sort of blue color. I was convinced the hair in the photo had blue in it, but my stylist pointed out that the hints of what appeared to be blue were actually silver, and she showed me the instructions to verify that. The colors used were neon red, neon yellow, and silver (I don’t remember the actual color names, but I’m sure they were awesome as all color names tend to be – bright papaya or nuclear lemon or something like that). So, no blue. Okay.

83f2b9369a9f40db69db7557a5a68596
I must do blue hair someday; or maybe green. Or both, more likely.

One thing that has always baffled me a bit about hair stylists is how they often – at least in my experience – don’t explain well the consequences of the choices their clients make when they come in with an idea about a cut, color, or other process they’ve chosen to undergo. Or maybe it’s just me, and everyone else knows to ask for such information. I always end up thinking of that scene in Death Becomes Her when Meryl Streep has just chugged the magic, youth-inducing potion down and Isabella Rosellini tells her there’s just one warning, and Meryl looks at her in her fabulous Meryl way and says, “NOW a warning?!” When I got my may-or-may-not-have-been-a-good-idea perm, I was told after it was done that I shouldn’t pull my hair up or back or out of my face/off my neck IN ANY WAY for at least 48 hours, and if possible to go longer than that. I don’t know, that just seems like something I should have been told before we got started, mostly because it sent my mind reeling to think what could have happened to my perm if the stylist had forgotten to off-handedly throw that little nugget of vitally important information to me as I walked out the door (I mean really, I came so close to not being told something that could have resulted in me wearing ponytail-head-looking hair for the next six months. Really?!). Or getting a ‘custom’ short cut that entailed getting regular trims every two weeks if I wanted the ‘structure’ that was, in fact, the ‘custom’ part of the equation (‘structure’ in this case was the magic word that made the difference between looking like I had a super-cool, edgy short style or hair that had been gnawed on by wolves). You know, stuff like that.

hair-day1
Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you my ‘custom cut’ of 2011.

Well, what I wasn’t told this time was that the process of getting these “very thin little highlights of color” woven into my hair would take four hours. Now, I love my stylist (whose name is Gracie, by the way), and give or take a few years here and there where I cheated on her, I’ve been going to her for close to 15 years, so this isn’t so much a complaint as it is an observation. And I do think the process took longer than even she expected (because again, everyone’s hair is different and will take or lift color differently), but when I finally asked about how much longer it was going to take, she explained that to do the funky colors involved stripping the hair first of color, and going through the entire bleaching process and then doing another entire coloring process (which involved coloring, washing out, toning, etc) after that. Perhaps I should have known this, but since the only color I’ve ever done involved adding dark brown to cover gray or bleaching a bit to get some highlights, I had no idea, so a process I expected to take, an hour and half, tops, ended up taking four, and since I got there at 10 AM I was absolutely starving by the time we got done around two o’clock. I was also pretty irritable, which is not usually an emotion I feel when visiting a salon. If I’d known it would take that long, I would have been better prepared. And brought snacks.

So okay, if you’ve read this far you probably kind of have had the experience I had of waiting four hours for my hair to be done. You’re welcome.

color1
See the little peek of silver in the fringe? And my husband pointed out to me that I made my lips look ‘enhanced’ in this photo with too much editing. I tried to fix the problem, but much like real plastic surgery, it could not be repaired. Whatever, I still like the way it shows the color, even if it gives too many of my Photoshop secrets away. And yeah, if I wasn’t both cheap and chicken (and married to someone who’d divorce me if I did it) I’d plump the hell out of my real lips too.

The end result is not quite as dramatic as this photo, as I’ve done two things here – Photoshopped the color vibrancy, natch, but I also shifted my side part from the left to the right to really show the color. Gracie did a great job weaving the color into my hair so that when it’s parted properly, you get hints of interesting color rather than being bombarded by it, but if the wind blows or I change the part to the right side (which I never do) you can see the bright colors lurking just below the surface. The end result is pretty darn cool, although overall it came out far more red-and-yellow than I expected (if I allow my mind to wander, this takes me to some dangerous places such as McDonald’s, OR the school colors of my former workplace, which are, you guessed it, red and gold – so I shut that internal dialogue down quickly). The silver is there, but it’s quite subtle – in the pic above you can JUST see a hint of it in the fringe, and there’s a long strip of it going down the left side that you can’t really see in any obvious way unless I pull all my hair over to show it off. I realize this was the point, and that I explicity told Gracie to work the funky in in such a way that I could still pull off looking ‘normal’ from a distance (and I do like the idea that if I really want to go for funky I can just part my hair to the other side) but it is a bummer that the silver, which is soooo pretty, doesn’t really show unless I try very hard to show it. That is what I asked for though, so I’m not complaining.

color6
Another little peek at the silver streak

Anyway, this definitely introduced me to the world of truly funky color, so from here who knows where I’ll go. I do think I’d like to do some blue at some point. And another fun side note – my husband didn’t even notice the change. As long as I do not cut my hair short again, he really doesn’t care what it looks like. I do think I had Gracie cut the bangs too short this time; I thought with the new funkier colors I’d like an edgier cut, but as usual I had her go a touch too short and the end result isn’t the best on me (I am terrible about this – any time a stylist shows me a haircut and asks if the length is OK or if I want to go ‘a little bit shorter,’ my answer is ALWAYS ‘a little bit shorter.’ It’s not so much that I want shorter hair as it is my frugal side kicks in and I think, well shorter means I can go an extra week without needing a trim. So there it is).

color2
Color TOTALLY enhanced here. Like, times ten.

In the end, I like it. It’s a bit more ketchup-and-mustard than hip-techno-mermaid like the original photo (okay, so it’s a lot more ketchup-and-mustard), it’s still something fun and different, and it’s opened me up more to the possibility of doing something really fun and crazy somewhere down the road – who knows what I’ll do next! As long as I don’t cut it short, apparently, at least my husband won’t complain.

In other news, I have more wig reviews to edit and upload, I finally landed another client for tutoring, and I’m heading back for a short weekend retreat to the Ruah center tomorrow. Happy almost the weekend, everybody!

Batting an Eye(lash)

Posted on August 12, 2015 by marey mercy

Well, we can add a new chapter to my never-ending quest for frivolous, over-priced beauty enhancements. But this time, the results were less than impressive; in fact, they were almost disastrous. Because this time, I decided to try out getting eyelash extensions.

Pretty much the only way I’ll wear extensions again

Usually I have good luck with these sorts of procedures, but of course, I usually do my homework and read up on the possible complications ahead of time so I can make an informed decision. When I finally decided to perm my hair last summer, it was with full awareness that I might fry it to hell and back, or end up looking like a deranged poodle; I’d weighed my options long enough to feel comfortable with whatever outcome I might encounter. I’d also researched the steps needed to provide me with the best chance of success – don’t go cheap, ask questions of the hairstylist and be sure he or she did perms regularly, have a consultation first, etc. I did the same amount of research before getting Botox, or fillers (only did that once and didn’t care for it), or hell, even highlighting my hair a month ago. I know the risks, and I know what to expect when I sit down in a stylist’s chair or doctor’s table. So, while I may not get the results I’m hoping for, at least I’m not surprised by what transpires.

However – about a week ago I read an account from someone I know who’d gotten eyelash extensions, and although I’d heard of them I’d never considered them before. But hers looked so wonderful, and I’d never been able to make glue-on falsies work on me, that it gave me the itch to try them. Remember that word itch, ’cause it’s important later on.

I did do some Googling about them, and mostly read pro-and-con type blog posts about how great they looked, but also how time-consuming and expensive they can be to maintain. Well hell, maintenance isn’t such a big hassle to me if it’s something I really want, so after a few hours of reading I decided to book an appointment at my regular salon to give them a go. My nail salon is a pretty upscale place, so I felt confident that I’d be getting a qualified technician to do the job. The price also indicated professionalism – $200 for a full set, and about $75 for each refill.

The technician was incredibly booked, so I snagged the only upcoming appointment I could get, which was a Tuesday at 5 PM. This just so happened to be two days before school started up for the fall semester, so I knew I’d be really busy, but the thought of having lovely, fabulous lashes for my first day of teaching (the day we also take photos for the yearbook and our staff IDs) was appealing enough for me to set that time aside.

I met with the nail tech, and we discussed maintaining the lashes and what to expect during the procedure. I mentioned to her that my eyes could be sensitive, but usually weren’t, and she told me it was normal to feel a little burn from the glue while the lashes were being applied, but if the burn turned into real pain I needed to let her know. I agreed to do so, then laid down on the table under a bright light, so she could get to work.

Now – here comes the first part of this process that I had not anticipated: in order to ensure that none of my lower lashes accidentally got stuck to the upper ones, they had to be covered with a pad. After mashing the lower lashes under the pad, which is done by pushing it right up against the waterline, I was to close my eyes so the technician was working with only my upper lashes, which would be resting on top of the white eyepad. However, we had to try six times to get the pad to fit under my eye in a manner that didn’t cause me great discomfort and irritation, as well as making my eyelids flutter and water instead of staying closed.

It was at this point I realized that hey, I really did kinda jump into this without doing my research, because I never get surprised by a part of the process when I try out cosmetic enhancements like this. And this time, I just didn’t bother to do good homework, because I never even saw this coming. How anyone can keep their eyes closed while mashed down on what felt like a piece of paper pushed up against the waterline is beyond me, but the technician said most women don’t have a problem with it. I really was thinking that if I’d known I’d be lying on my back for two hours with pads shoved into my eyes I would have re-thought the entire procedure, but there I was, so I decided to soldier on.

My eyes never did stop watering, not once during the two hours I was getting each individual synthetic lash attached to a real one. I also noticed that I was far less relaxed, and much more chatty in nonsensical, nervous kind of way, than I usually am. I was also wiggly, and uncomfortable, and very nervous – again, not my usual demeanor when doing stuff like this. And the eyes watered on, and yes, they did burn, but that tingly little burn you sometimes get when you apply regular lash glue, the kind that irritates a little but stops when the glue dries, and isn’t that big of a deal.

The last 45 minutes, though, were pure torture. I was thinking things like, OMG I am going to have to insist that she stop now, and asking her repeatedly how much longer we had to go. I was even apologizing constantly for being one of “those” clients who spent the entite time on the table whining and nattering on. It was just…weird, and I kept visualizing the woman sneezing or something and sticking me right in the eye with her little needle. In short, I was freaking out.

When she was finally done and showed me the results in the mirror, I was awestruck. The lashes were gorgeous. I was so pleased I managed to convince myself that my red-ringed eyes would calm down, just as she told me they would, and that the fact these gorgeous lashes felt a bit like pine needles scratching my lids would subside, but once again, I was really doubtful, and nervous, in a manner I am usually not. several times I asked her if they were supposed to feel this way, and she reassured me once again that different people experience different level of discomfort at first, but that in an hour or so it should be fine. She did tell me to be sure and come back in if I wanted them removed, and not to do so at home.

I must admit, they were gorgeous. For about an hour.

To make this already too-long story shorter: I was uncomfortable all evening, and even swallowed a few Benadryl to try and relieve the swollen lids and itchy eyes; but when it came time for bed I found it too uncomfortable to close my eyes. I could just feel those suckers poking at me and scratching my skin. Then I made what may or may not have been the worst mistake of the night: I Googled “lash extensions irritation” and was bombarded immediately with images of women sporting puffy, swollen-shut eyes, and reading horror story after horror story about the dangers of the procedure.

Normally, even when something doesn’t go the way I would have liked, I accept that and move on in whatever way I must do; this time, I went into a complete panic. My heart was racing, I hyperventilated, I got dizzy and terrified. I calmed myself down by making plans: OK, in the morning if you’re really swollen, you can call in sick and get to a doctor or back to the salon right away, if you’re just still feeling a bit off you can make it through the day and then decide, or maybe you’ll just wake up with these gorgeous lashes and the irritation will have gone away. By running through the options in my mind, I finally calmed myself down enough to fall asleep around 12:30. But then, at 1 AM, I leapt up out of the bed with distinct feeling that my throat was closing up. It was so intense that without even fully waking I ran out of the bedroom into the den where my husband was still up watching TV, panting at him with what little breath I had left that…well, that nothing, because by the time I made it into the den the sensation had stopped, and while I could breathe again, I was panting like a madwoman and clawing at my own chest like I still thought I might die.

I muttered something to Doug about a bad dream, and some mascara I couldn’t wash off (I didn’t tell him about getting the extensions for no real reason except that it didn’t come up, and in hindsight I am so glad I didn’t because he would have given me hell for weeks if he’d known, in light of what happened). I remembered that the technician had said not to get the lashes wet for 48 hours, so I figured that meant it would break down the glue and the lashes might come off; straight to the bathroom sink I went to stick my face in handful after handful of cold water and slowly rub those suckers off. In my Googling before falling asleep I’d read that anything oil-based might also cause them to fall off, so I used both some oil-based makeup remover AND olive oil from the kitchen to weaken the glue further (Doug did not even ask why I dashed into the kitchen for a bottle of olive oil to take with me into the bathroom, which leads me to believe he thought I was experiencing some sort of bizarre sleepwalking episode he didn’t want to interrupt).

It only took about ten minutes, but I managed to snap off every single one of those $200 worth of false lashes – along with most of my natural ones. My eyes were red, puffy, itchy, and ugly as hell all the next day, but honestly I did not even care. The five hours I had those lashes glued on were the most beautiful and excruciating hours of the life of my damn eyes, and I would have done anything after that horrid panic attack to get them off. I managed to get back to sleep around 2:30, then had to get up at 6 AM for work – let me tell you, I looked a hot damn mess that day, but again, I did not even care, because I have never been so relieved to get rid of false eyelashes in my life. I kid you not when I say that I thought those things were going to kill me.

So, it’s off to bed I go again, so I can get up for the first day of school tomorrow. Hopefully I’ll be able to put some makeup on my eyes tomorrow to conceal the lack of lashes, but if not, I’ll just show them the picture of how great I looked for about an hour before it all came crashing down. Let me be a warning to you people – don’t get lazy about doing your research before getting anything done, no matter how simple and harmless it might appear to be. And trust your instincts, not your technician! If it doesn’t feel right, just get on up and tell them no thanks. Your eyelashes will thank you for it later.

PS: I typed this up really fast, so I apologize for typos and lack of clarity or eloquence. I think I’m still shaking off the effects of my brush with death. I also realize the pictures are cheesy, but again, I was in a hurry.