When I was growing up, there were three major holidays that I always looked forward to: Halloween, Valentine’s day, and Christmas. Those three resonate largely in my mind because they were the most overflowing with candy, gifts, money, and the sometimes cash-less (disappointing) hallmark cards. There was nothing more depressing for me, growing up, than a card with no money or goodies in it. Even a cute card with a tiny tootsie roll attached to the back would be something.

I loved how all my teachers would force all the students to bring valentines for everyone. This meant I would get 26 valentines, no matter what! I remember one year we made valentines “mailboxes” out of cereal boxes that we decorated and encoded special messages into. Love messages. I hated pink when I was little, so I made my box a “under water” valentine’s day scene based off of one of my well-loved spongebob episodes. I covered it in blue paper and made lighter shades of bubbles throughout the “scenery.” The box really didn’t have anything to do with valentine’s day, other than my obvious reasons, and therefore students found it odd and usually voiced their opinions. One girl in particular, whom I didn’t really like much (super prissy and an ultra-snob) sneered over at my masterpiece and said, “You know valentine’s day colors are supposed to be PINK and RED and MORE SHADES OF PINK.” The rest of the girls in the class surrounded me and started making accusations about my obvious failure when it came to appropriately decorating. I got red in the face and stamped my foot on the ground to assert my power, “I like Blue. I like Green. I hate red. I hate pink. I can do whatever I want for my V-day mailbox, so go away!”

That year I made the best candy profits of any other holiday I can remember. All the boys in my class loved my box because it was different; I received multiple valentines from each of them. It was fantastic. In celebration, I went home and ate all my candy while watching a very special (chocolaty) episode of SpongeBob Squarepants. In my mind, that was success.

I wish things were still as simple as they were when I was a candy-devouring adolescent. I could think about V-Day from a very focused perspective. One goal: Candy. Today, when I checked my facebook, I wandered through update after update about being “alone on V-day” or “needing a girlfriend for this special holiday”. I feel like it’s all about a cliché; we want a “lover,” even if it lasts for a moment, just to fulfill our own expectations of V-Day. People expect cheesy poems and love notes. They desire red roses and over-priced, low quality chocolate. They hope for surprises. I find that we fill up our own heads with silly expectations that shouldn’t be expectations at all. If “love” (whatever that is) is real, those special moments should be sporadic. They shouldn’t be obligations of high school relationships that become filled with over-sized fluffy teddy bears or cheap chocolate. Actions of love are real. Obligations are not genuinely love-induced.

I wish this holiday could just be about candy again. Maybe it still is for me?

Curiosity DID NOT Kill the Baby... (Yet)

I realized one morning, while talking to Ethan Schiller, that I needed to get my eyebrows waxed. He spoke about the unnatural feeling of a completely smooth “diampol” (the word I used to describe the area above your nose, and between your eyebrows… the space where people are afflicted by the rugged stubble known as the “uni-brow”). Obviously curious, I reached my hand up to my own forehead and touched the area I’ve dubbed “diampol”. There was fluff. Just a little, normal for a girl who occasionally, though very infrequently, plucks stray hairs around her eyebrows. I showed Ethan my problem and he nodded with understanding, and then frowned and said, “you should probably wax that.” He probably wasn’t serious. He didn’t seem like one of the world’s biggest proponents of waxing, in fact, he said it “sucked”. He kept on repeating that it felt unnatural and I didn’t know why he even put himself through something so dreadful.

So I don’t really know how we ended up going to the grocery store and buying a facial hair waxing set. My dad always calls me his little “scientist” because I have a somewhat dangerously curious spirit. I was the girl that stole a sip of her father’s beer when she was 4 years old because she wanted to see why daddy got to drink that yummy german soda. I knew I wasn’t supposed to do it, but that didn’t stop me. My dad turned to flip the shish kabobs on the grill and I stole a swig. I immediately spit it all over my dad's jeans. Of course, my parents think it’s funny now… but I’m sure they considered getting my brain checked out the first time I tried to “escape” my house when I was just a year and a half. My mom found me slowly waddling down the sidewalk towards the neighbor’s house. When she caught up to me she heard me murmuring “chat” (the French word for cat) over and over again. My mommy momentarily forgot how angry she was with me and congratulated me on my brilliant use of a new word, one that she had undoubtedly been repeating to me for the past several weeks in hopes of me becoming a proficient French speaker, like herself.

Waxing my eyebrows was a terrible idea. I would never recommend it for anyone. I don’t even think it worked. It just hurt like hell! I stood in the kitchen with a towel between my teeth so I wouldn’t scream as he ripped the waxed cloth off my forehead. The towel didn’t stop a few audible grunts and curses from escaping my mouth, nor did the wax seem to have any affect on the “afflicted” area. I still had that fuzz.

I don’t regret it though. I had fun. I suppose I can say it was an adventure. You see, now I know what waxing my eyebrows is like. I will never be lured into the trap of eyebrow waxing by a pushy salon lady or my friends trying to “help” me out. Nope. See, I had experimented and found a conclusion. I don’t like waxing my eyebrows.

So, the next time someone offers you a bottle of facial hair wax, think back to this blogpost and understand that you have two options: 1. You can take my word for it and believe me when I say it’s a worthless pain in the ass, or… 2. You could just try it and be a scientist yourself.

ALL UP TO YOU DUDE!