Adventures in Hair Removal

As anyone who knows me could tell you, I am one hairy chick. When I was little, my classmates teased me by calling me Hairy Carrie. Yeah, rhyming is fun. I was so famous throughout my school district that even older kids that I'd never met would shout, "Hairy Carrie" at me from across the mall then laugh to the point of wetting themselves when I turned around and gave them the old stink-eye. I've always had enough hair on my forearms to make it look like I'm permanently wearing long sleeves, and I can grow a mustache that would make most sixteen-year-old boys jealous. Well, no more. And for my Spanish speaking friends, no mas.

I remember a conversation I had as a little girl. "Mom, when will I stop having all this hair?"

"When you're older," she said, leaving me with the impression that sometime during my adolescence, I was going to wake up to discover that all of my body hair had magically fallen out. I wish some teacher would have taken me aside and taught me the importance of follow-up questions, but since none ever did, I just took my mom's response at face value. At the ripe old age of twenty-seven, I found myself still waiting for the shit to fall out, all the while growing more and more self-conscious about my looks.

The one bright spot in my adult life (if being humiliated can ever be considered a bright spot) was one time when a friend and I went out for Chinese. This was one of our favorite restaurants in Dayton, and we'd had this one tiny little Asian waitress at least a dozen times before, but for some reason on this one night she decided that she had to pay me a "compliment." When she brought our check, she started stroking the hair on my right arm and said, "Oooh, so sexy." My friend had to immediately excuse herself from the table. I could hear her crying with laughter as she walked away. Sure, it's a funny story now, but at the time I was mortified. I thought only little kids and retarded people were allowed to get away with commenting on people's physical shortcomings like that. I know. I know. What she said was theoretically nice. How was she to know she was pointing out the thing about which I was most self-conscious?

A few years later, I was working at a bookstore when another Asian lady caught my attention and motioned for me to come join her in the children's section. In a rather broken accent she told me, "I used have hair like you. I know where you can get fixed."

"What?" I asked, not quite sure I'd understood her.

"Hair. Your arms. Can fix."

"Thanks. I'm good."

I wasn't good though. I was again embarrassed by the cards the Geneticist in the Sky had dealt me. And what was it with these Asian people? Seriously, is there some sort of cultural propensity toward inappropriate frankness that I didn't learn about in school?

So jump to yesterday. Yesterday I woke up feeling like shit. I felt unattractive for the 3876th day in a row, and, frankly, I was over it. Carrie, you can't go to job interviews looking like this, I told myself. Looks do matter, no matter what your mother tells you. This hair would have to go. I thought the best place to shop for hair removal products would be with other classically unattractive people, so I drove to Wal-Mart. You would think that in all the places in all the world, Wal-Mart would be the place to take care of all your hair removal needs. I mean, look at the people who work and shop there. I know I'm sounding like a real a-hole, but seriously. Wal-Mart isn't exactly a bastion of trendiness and good grooming. Sadly though, my choices were limited. There were creams. I had tried these when I was 8 and I already had hair under my arms. I think my mother felt that 8 was too young to wield a razor. In the end, she had to entrust me with a Lady Bic, because these hair removal creams, turns out, are total bullshit. So creams were out. There were waxes that needed to be heated up and applied with wands. This seemed like a disaster waiting to happen. I mean, how do you get hot wax out of your eyeball? Or what about 2nd degree burns? I don't need that sort of mayonnaise in my life. Then I glanced the bottom shelf. Nads. I'd seen Nads on tv. I'd seen the Australian woman who created the product rip the hair off her beast-like daughter's arm with three easy motions. The daughter, she didn't even wince. I mean, Nads has kava in it, for Christ's sake. Who else is going to offer me all this in in one ready-made-wax-preapplied strip? No one. That's who. I bought the face kit as well as the full-size strips and went about my business.

When I went home, I waxed my lip. I'm not going into great detail about it, because I owned that shit, which makes it not that interesting and not at all funny. So I'm moving on.

Later that night, all the optimism about life and the feeling less hideous had already worn off. There was still the matter of the arms. How could anyone ever love me with these arms. Did I say love? I meant hire. Is there a difference really? It was 1:00 a.m. and I was as unattractive as when I woke up that morning. For a moment I thought, Carrie, is this really something you want to get into in the middle of the night? I thought, this is one of those mistakes that you know you're making even as you're making it. Like asking a friend for a cigarette or driving to Canada to marry a drug addict. The hair will still be there in the morning, I assured myself as I walked into the bathroom and took out the full-size strips. Well, here's the thing about applying a waxing strip to some part of your body--there's really only one way to get it off, and, whether you mean to or not, you're taking some hair with you. What I'm saying is, once you've got the strip on, you're fucked, so you might as well go for it. I stood there for a moment, looking down at the 3x6 inch strip pasted to my left arm. You're a fucking idiot, I thought. There's a reason people pay to have this shit professionally tended to. Deep breath. Yank. Stars. I saw stars. My eyes teared. I looked down. There was a perfect patch of perfectly smooth skin that I'd never seen in its full, hairless glory now exposed on my left arm. Fuck, I thought. I can't walk around like this. This is the thing you don't think about. Once you start the process, you have to see it through. An hour and a half later, after several breaks to stop the cold sweats and the shaking, I had two bare arms. Well, mostly bare. I spent half of the next day meticulously plucking any extra-fortified follicles which had been strong enough or sneaky enough to thwart the kava-infused wax.

I'm told that the hair will not come back all black and brillo-paddy. I'm told that someday, the hair will recognize its own futile need to grow and I'll hardly ever have to wax at all. I'm told that looks don't matter, and now that I feel a little less like a wereperson, I'm sort of inclined to agree.

The View from the Mountain

So it's been a while since I've written anything. I'll go ahead an apologize now for this not being "typical" Carrie. It's the 40th anniversary of Dr. King's death. I thought I'd post links to the transcript of the "I've been to the mountain top" speech that he gave the night before he was killed as well as a video clip of it.

Transcript with brief clip: www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkivebeentothemountaintop.htm

I just stumbled upon this website when I was trying to find a transcript of the "I have a dream" speech for my mom. It's pretty cool. All these rhetoricians have gotten together and picked the top 100 American speeches. The site has full transcripts of all of them as well as audio and video clips of the speeches that were given at times when that technology was available. I recommend checking it out. http://www.americanrhetoric.com

As for the speech at hand, and for Dr. King's speeches in general, they were the best. Period. He was the best. Period. I'm not saying that Senator Obama's speech on race wasn't a good speech. I am saying that it wasn't soul stirring. I've heard the "I have a dream" speech 50 times and I tear up every single time. When I watched Senator Obama's speech, I just saw an eloquent man trying to keep his poll numbers from sliding, which is, let's don't forget, exactly what he was doing.

From the Road #4

Saturday, March 22, 2008
5:16 p.m.
Out back of the Chalet
We went into town and I had the kind of cramps that could drive a girl to grab a steak knife and cut out her own reproductive organs. I mean, what the fuck? I’ve got no plans to use the shit. Cramps are SO the antithesis of everything bachelor party.

While the men sat in the bar watching West By God Virginia beat up on Duke, I walked down the main strip and tried not to spend money. But what’s a girl to do when she walks past a store and see’s “Designer sunglasses $9.99?” My mother’s voice shoved and elbowed its way from the back of my head past the worry about what I’m supposed to do with my life and the resentment for my reproductive system and it said, “Get yourself some good sunglasses.”

I walked into the store and recklessly tried on sunglasses that countless other folks, lice infected honeymooners and blue haired old ladies already on the lookout for Christmas discounts for their grandkids, had already slid behind their greasy ears. Nothing looked good and as soon as I heard the clerk recommending “a pair of Nike’s that are perfect for wide heads” to a man with a wide head, I took off, afraid that he’d look at me and make the same embarrassing suggestion.

Thinking I was destined to leave Gatlinburg sunglassesless, I moseyed on down the road. I walked not fifty feet and was greeted with another in a long line of Easter Weekend miracles. There to my left was an Oakley store. I went in thinking I would just look around. As far as I knew, these were expensive sunglasses. Imagine my delight when I realized that these were rip-offs too. I can’t even tell you what the sunglasses I bought look like, but I know that I’m staving off cataracts and crow’s feet and it only cost me ten bucks.

From the Road #3

Friday March 21, 2008
2:29 p.m.
Off the mountain—a retrospective
Today I drove us off the mountain, through Gatlinburg and into Pigeon Forge, thinking it would be good practice for Sunday morning when I’m fleeing at the ass crack of dawn. Now that I know I can do it without getting myself killed, I feel a lot better about things.

Tim really wanted to go go-cart racing, so we did. My wide ass barely fit in the car, and then I needed the help of the local guy running the place to expand the seat belt enough to get it over my massive triple d’s (since I know you want to know). Though, the way I had myself wedged in there, I’m not completely sure the seat belt was necessary. When we got the green light, the four of us took off in our little go-carts, and it wasn’t ten seconds before Tim passed me. He and Collins are nice enough to insist that the only reason they lapped me is because I had a slow car. Given the fact that I could feel my undercarriage scraping the concrete on every turn, I’m more inclined to believe it was because my fat ass wasn’t meant to be carted around on a lawnmower motor. I paid Tim and Collins back for their words of encouragement by accidentally calling both of their families retarded, but more on that later.

After the go-carts, we decided to go to Pigeon Forge’s classiest tourist attraction—Jurassic Jungle Boat Ride. We paid fifteen dollars for fifteen minutes. I don’t mean to imply that there was a pay by the minute option. That’s just the way it worked out. I can’t really do this ride justice with my words, but basically here’s how it went. We sat in a boat and inched forward through a dark warehouse. Every few feet, the boat would stop and a loud screeching sound would come over the blown speakers. Then a light would come on and illuminate whatever horrible animatronic dinosaur-like thing was in front of us. At the end of the ride, we sat, in our boat, in front of the door that led to the outside world. Just when we thought we were going to have to get out of the boat to push the door open, the boat was reared back to a 50 degree angle. Even though the front of the boat was pointed uphill, I’d call this the climax of the ride. If there was a falling action, it was that the door finally opened and we got out.

Last on our list of touristy shit to do was Hillbilly Golf. I’m not sure what exactly made it hillbilly, but I do know that we had to take this gondola thing halfway up a mountain and that most of the holes had farm equipment incorporated into them. This is where me calling Tim’s and Collins’ families retarded comes into play. I don’t know how you play putt-putt, but in my family and with every family I have ever played, each person in the group putts, then everyone goes and has their second put, unless, of course, you’re and all-star like me and you only get holes-in-one. Anyway, Tim and Collins always played that each person in the group kept going until they got their ball in the hole. Then the next person would go until they got his ball in the hole and so on. I was astonished by this silliness, so I said, “What the hell kind of family did you grow up in that you played like that?” Tim took that to mean that I was calling his family retarded. In hindsight, I can see how he might have interpreted it that way, though that’s not at all what I meant. For the next 16 holes, Tim made jokes about his retarded/inbred family. I laughed hysterically and felt like shit simultaneously. The ability to make me do this is a unique gift of Tim’s. I guess maybe I had the last laugh. I won at Hillbilly Golf. Maybe I can put that on my resume.

The Candy Man Can

The votes are in. It’s official. I am the spokeswoman for lesbians everywhere. I was having coffee with a friend today, and out of nowhere he looked at me and, as if he'd been waiting for this moment since the first moment we became friends he said, “Carrie, I need to ask you a question.”

“Is it personal?”

“Yes, and please feel free to tell me that I’m over the line or answer as much or as little or not at all.”

“Okay. Shoot.”

“I love going down on my girlfriend, but I was just wondering, from a woman who loves women’s perspective, is there anything I can do to make it better?”

I have to admit. This question was a relief. I’m used to people feeling like they’ve all of a sudden reached some sort of level of emotional intimacy with me, specifically the level of emotional intimacy that makes them feel like they have the green light to invite me to have sex with them. The reason that I know that these other people feel like they’ve reached that level of emotional intimacy is because they then ask, “Carrie, would you ever consider joining me and my wife/girlfriend/husband/boyfriend in the bedroom? You know, for the sex?” The answer has always, and I think will always be, “no.” I know I’ve strayed a little from the topic at hand, but I just thought I should include some example as to why this particular gentleman's question came as a relief.

I will admit, this question made me a little uncomfortable, not because of the subject matter, but because I didn’t have a ready made answer for him. “It’s all about the amount of pressure you apply,” I said.

“But how much?”

At this point I’m thinking, how the fuck should I know? No two vaginas are alike. Yay for you for having the rest of your life to figure just this one vagina out. I didn’t say that though. Instead I just said, “You’re going to have to rely on her to tell you that.” I felt bad for not being able to help the guy out more. The thing is, for me sex, in all its forms, has always been very intuitive. If you read people well, you can pick up on what’s working and what isn’t. How do I tell a guy that he should pay more attention to the minutia of his girlfriend's sexual responses? The answer is, I don’t. Instead I tell him an embarrassing fact about myself in an effort to make him feel better. “In the two years we were together, Liza never got off. Not once. I couldn’t get her off. She couldn’t get herself off. It fucking sucked. That’s what being on a shit ton of illegal drugs and antidepressants can do to you.”

“Not even with vibrators and shit?”

“Buddy, we could plug a fucking jackhammer into the wall and it wasn’t going to give that girl an orgasm.”

We contemplated this. Rather, I watched him contemplate it, and I tried to come up with something more helpful to the question that, I was mildly offended that he had the audacity to ask. “I don’t know how you straight people get along. Do you ever just use your fingers? Or is that something that grown people don’t do?”

“Well, you know, not often.”

“All I can suggest is, if you know how to get her off with your fingers, try recreating the same sort of thing with your mouth. It’s all about friction.” This seemed to bring this part of the awkward conversation to an end. When I thought we could move onto sports or something, my friend started up again.

“What about the g-spot?”

“Buddy, unless you have a dick shaped like a candy cane, you’re not finding it with what you’ve got below your waist.” Okay, so these weren't my exact words, but you get my point. I wish I had thought of the candy cane thing. I think we both would have laughed about that. I did make a hook shape with my index finger and told him where the illusive spot should be.

“I hear it’s like a come hither motion,” he says. I suppose he’s right.

“Can she find it?” This is the best question I can think to ask. I mean, seriously. Why don’t people understand that, unless they know what works for them, no one else is going to be able to figure it out either?

This whole line of questioning continued until I finally knew that his girlfriend had three vibrators when my friend met her and that she had names for all of them. “Well does she still use them?” He just looked at me. “Why don’t you guys incorporate whatever works, let her do whatever she needs to and just watch and learn?” Christ almighty. I haven’t had sex once during President Bush’s second term, and I’ve got this guy asking me how to get his girlfriend off.

I thought, why don’t you give old Carrie a crack at it? I’ll take notes and get back to you.

Bruce Springsteen is not the Boss of Me

I have a friend with a lovely and generous mother. This lovely and generous woman invited me to go along with her and her daughter and future son-in-law to see Bruce Springsteen. Though I've never really been into The Boss, I do have one of his albums, The Seeger Sessions, which is amazing and not his music. It is, in fact, Pete Seeger's music hence the name of he album and its ensuing awesomeness. I knew that none of the songs I like would be played at the concert, but I also knew that Bruce Springsteen is a musical icon and anyone who claims to be a music buff should, if given the opportunity, see him in concert just to see what it's all about. This is why I happily accepted the invitation of the lovely and generous woman.

I will say, Bruce Springsteen puts on a hell of a show. I may have only known two full songs and one refrain of "sha la la la, something or other," but the man busts his ass and he still nicely fills out a pair of Levis. And, as a longtime fan of Late Night with Conan O'Brien, it was pretty cool to see Max Motherfucking Weinburg panting and sweating and pounding away behind the drum kit. I've never watched The Sopranos, but Little Steven's, as in the guy who played Silvio, do-rag was a sight to see. The thing I liked most about the concert, though, was the same thing I like most about being out in public in general. The people watching, in general, was top notch. This one man in front of me, specifically, was amazing.

The man in front of me was, I think, a retired marine. I say this because he was wearing a tee shirt that said "jarhead," a jacket with patches all over it, one of which said "combat veteran" and a cowboy hat with some other mariney pins on it. Yeah, I'm sort of like Sherlock Holmes. So, Jarhead was there with either his wife or the woman he's cheating on his wife with (he was wearing a wedding band) and he could not have been more excited about seeing Bruce. As soon as Springsteen took the stage, Jarhead got a major emotional hard-on, and it became pretty apparent that he needed some sort of outlet for this pent-up, Bruce induced (should I say inBruced?) sexual energy. When The Boss sang, Jarhead immediately grabbed his girl and started giving her such an intense back rub that I thought he was going to pop the poor girl's head off like a cork from a champagne bottle. This went on for the first couple songs, then some love song came on, so he stood up and started serenading his lady friend and doing some sort of pantomime that I guess sunk up with the lyrics. My favorite part of the evening was about 3/4 through when the "sha la la la something or other" song came on and he stood up, turned around, and looked me right in the eye, "come on you know this one." I just nodded.

In the end, it was refreshing to see a grown man get that excited about something. I have always had this theory that once a kid stops believing in Santa Clause, there really isn't any magic left to be found in anything. Who would have thought that it would take an ex-marine with a man crush on a New Jersyite to re-instill hope that maybe someday I'll have something to be that excited about too.

From the Road #2

Thursday, March 20, 2008
2:15 p.m.
At the Chalet:

Three stories. Three balconies. Six beds. Eight boys. Looks like snuggle time for Tim and Carrie.

I can’t begin to describe the train wreck that is Pigeon Forge. It’s like a hillbilly extravaganza. Giant arcades. Go-carts. An enormous upside down theater that just does Laser-light-Christian extravaganzas. Easter’s a big weekend for the Bible Belt. Luckily, we’re not staying in Pigeon Forge. It’s just the first stop off the highway. The little redneck strip of land set aside for the lesser-thans. No, we’re in Gatlinburg, the Swiss Alps of North America. You drive down the main strip and right after you drive past Cooters (the Dukes of Hazzard themed attraction) the scenery changes. All the airbrushed tee shirt shops have an outside façade that suggests, we’re part of a luxury ski resort. There’s faux timber everywhere. Everything is the color of evergreens. There are restaurants and bars and wax museums and a Ripley’s Believe it or Not haunted house. It’s everything a southerner with a bit more cheddar in their bank account would want to do in Pigeon Forge’s snobby older cousin.

We got here earlier than we were able to get into our chalet. What are seven thirsty men and one uptight lesbian to do when they can’t get into their vacation paradise? Well, for us the answer was clear. We paid ten dollars to park downtown and spent an hour at the local hangout, Puckers. Inside this wannabe Hooters establishment, there were big bosomed bartenders with dirty blond hair eager to take our drink orders, and more eager still to ascertain which of the men were single. “I’m thirty-two, have been married for fifteen years and have four kids,” said the woman behind the bar. “Can I get you fellas a shot?”

With the help of sweet baby Jesus, the man responsible for all that is good in this part of the country, we were called and notified that our chalet was ready early. We settled our tab with Chesty McGee and made our way to the top of the mountain.

Before I came down here, I was adamant that mama was going to have to periodically come down the mountain. After the harrowing experience of making it up here, I now realize just how foolish this idea had been. To get up here, we crisscrossed the 3500 ft mountain for ten of the most terrifying minutes of my life. We made 270 degree blind turns shitting our pants and praying that no one was headed around the corner in the other direction, because there was no way to do it without wandering five feet over the yellow line. When we made it I announced, “I’m not doing that again until I leave Sunday morning.” Everyone agreed and we came inside. Like an atypically boring reality show, we all picked our rooms. I’ll be sharing the master suite with Tim. To answer your next question, yes, there will be cuddling. There are plenty of nooks and crannies where I can see myself stealing away for all the alone time I could ever want. Like now for example.

I have to say, the view here is one of the most breathtaking I have ever seen. As I sit typing this, I’m sitting on one of the three balconies. To be specific, I’m I on the balcony that is perched right outside Tim’s and my bedroom. I’m listening to the boys on the balcony above me, and not one of them has asked where the fuck I’ve run off to. This is as I like it. I’m sitting across from a frost covered mountain. These ain’t your mama’s foothills, it should but does not say on the brochure.

I’ve had three beers and a shot of Jaeggermeister. I am not even tipsy. I will be drinking plenty of water.

One last thing—there’s an eleven pound brisket sitting in front of our fireplace. I think it’s marinating. I hope it’s marinating. Otherwise I’m confused. Maybe it’s a boy thing.

One more thing. I’m eavesdropping on the boys on the balcony above, and at this bachelor party, the men are talking about childrearing. Their women would be so proud.