The height of vanity.
Confession: I had my eyelashes tinted. Yeah, I know… but listen. See, a couple weeks ago the beautician at Kevin’s salon asked me to help her design a new brochure. She liked the end result so much that she’s been offering me free treatments ever since. I’ve already had a massage and an eyebrow wax, so last Saturday she offered to tint my lashes. I was hesitant. I mean, I thought I’d read that it was illegal in the US because it can cause blindness. (Turns out I was right.) Lots of salons do it here though, and she assured me that it was completely safe. I also had additional persuasion in the form of all the compliments I got at the wedding last week. (I was wearing mascara and lipstick, which I don’t normally do.) Apparently the eyelash tint gives you the appearance of wearing mascara for four weeks. The Snook’s response when I told him about her offer didn’t help either: “You don’t have enough lashes to dye!” Whatever! So I gave in.

It was an odd experience. First she smeared Vaseline all around my eye socket to keep the dye from staining my skin. Then she put these little pieces of paper below each eye for additional protection. The dye was then applied to my lower lashes with a q-tip. Then I had to close my eyes so she could glop it on the uppers too. After that, you just have to wait with your eyes closed while it works. I didn’t experience any stinging, mostly because I was so terrified of getting the stuff on my contacts (yeah, I shouldn’t have worn those) that I kept my peepers screwed up pretty tight. After ten minutes she came back and removed it with some wet cotton balls. I could see the difference right away. It really does look like I’m wearing mascara (but without all the goopiness that I normally get since I can’t apply it very well).

Anyway, that’s my confession. To tell you the truth, the novelty wore off after about four hours. Now I don’t even notice it in the mirror. I probably won’t have it redone. It’s not the way it looks or the experience… It’s more the horrible feelings of feminist guilt. I actually risked blindness for a cosmetic effect. I’m disgusted with myself. You guys don’t think any less of me now, do you?

Race results are in! There I am at #374 with a time of 35:33. I came in at 96th for my age group though, which is pretty sweet.

Bah, Father’s Day. I nearly missed it. It isn’t til September here, so if my sister hadn’t reminded me yesterday I would’ve forgotten completely. I did get to talk to my Dad though, so I’m still on the Good Child list. Happy Father’s Day, Dad! See you in a week! 🙂

Oh, the horror. Yes, those are armless and faceless sock monkey corpses littering our coffee table on CouchCam. I know; it’s a disturbing image. I’m finally catching up with my monkey backlog though, so those of you who are waiting should be getting one soon!

“No one who has seen ‘Birth of a Nation’ or ‘Gone With the Wind’ could fail to recognize the resemblance between the relationship of Scarlett O’Hara and Mammy and of Master Barry and Winky,” Mendelsohn writes.

I have now officially heard everything. What a ridiculous comparison. I’m not arguing that there are racial issues in Harry Potter; that much is obvious. But Mammy and Scarlett? Mammy was strong-willed and gave as good as she got in that relationship. She was a member of the family. Winky was not a member of the Crouch family. (And her master was Barty, not Barry.) I’d agree with a comparison of Civil War-era human racism and wizarding racism in general, but using these specific examples is just silly.

The World’s Smallest Game of Pong is not as difficult to play as you might think, though I still lose every time. I just suck at Pong. (Link courtesy of Kristen‘s soon-to-be-hubby Mark.)

Good grief. My site was down all day! Sorry about that.

I did it.
Thanks to everyone for their training advice over the past few months. My time for the 5K was 35:30, which is almost ten minutes faster than last year! I didn’t feel like I was going very fast, but I didn’t have to walk much and I only had one sip of water along the course. I also hit on a new strategy halfway through the race: pick someone ahead of you and make sure you beat them. In my case it was a short chubby girl with the endurance of a plow horse. I kept up with her the whole way and finally blew by her on the final turn. It felt wonderful. The Snook was there taking pictures and hopefully I’ll get some from the official photographer too. Thanks again to everyone who was mentally cheering me on. Next year – the 10K!   

Twelve hours til the race… I’m kinda dreading it.