This Is Where I’ve Been

It’s been too cold and gray around here to get anything of merit done. This place is the backdrop of a painting of London, the inside of a burnt popcorn pan, the edges of a street-corner puddle after a rain-out parade. It’s dark and moist in a very un-chocolate-cake way. I don’t like how it takes my mind to dark places.

Like for example, I’ve been obsessing about how I always seem to have mascara running down my face. I do wear mascara so it’s not a complete mystery, but I don’t understand why even though I have applied it on the top lashes only (as advised by several beauty editors), by lunchtime I look like I have been hitting the crack pipe – like I just got off the cheap bus from Dark Circle City. 

Remnants of black mascara are there even there after I try to wash it off. I’ll wash my face at night and in the morning – raccoon eyes. STILL. I’ve tried everything, soaps, abrasives, oils, gels, creams, lighter fluid – you name it – it doesn’t matter I ALWAYS have at least a trace of mascara on my lashes that will eventually shape-shift into to dark saucers round my eyes.

This leads me to believe that I may be applying new mascara on over mascara that could be days or, now that I think about it, even decades old. My mascara situation is a lot like the grease at Dyers Burgers. They never change the grease, they just keep adding new grease into the vat of the old and it has been this way for a hundred years now.  I’m talking about a bucket full of grease that has been around as long as Henry Ford’s assembly line. Some of the mascara on my lashes could possibly pre-date the curved applicator brush.

When I die and they do a forensic analysis of my eyelashes (if there are any left assuming they haven’t fallen off from mascara abuse or death by fire or molten lava or some terrible torture situation where my eyelashes have been individually plucked out) they will uncover rings, like those on a tree, that will tell the story of my life and my despair. My story. A story that starts with a ninety-nine cent tube of Wet n’ Wild bought with lunch money at the Fowlerville Dime Store and ends with….. well who knows what mascara technology they will have by then. Whatever it is, I am not confident I will be able to get it off my face. Maybe formaldehyde will be the thing that finally works.

Until then – it hurts my feelings when you tell me I look tired.

Sorry to get so personal and talk of self-care and hygiene even though that shouldn’t have grossed you out too much unless you believe mascara is made of bat crap.