Bushes, Bone Structure, and Black

Today I painted my fingernails black for the first time. It is not, as my father instantly concluded, my attempt to turn goth. A great many more things go into being a goth than simply painting one's fingernails. And the only reason this is the first time I've used black polish is that they don't sell it up at school, and so I had to wait for summer break to find any, and then I had to wait till the mood struck me to use it. I'm somewhat of an intuitive nail painter. There are certain things in this world logic is meant to be used for, like math homework, or furniture assembly, or which cell phone plan to go with. Other things are better left to intuition. Which movie to watch, whether to trust the neighborhood hobo, drape color, best friends, what flavor of jello to buy, and such things. Nail color is one of those such things. It just has to feel right. Now, before you go reading too much into the symbolism of my current nail color, let me say a few things.

I am not:

1. depressed
2. a goth (hopefully you already knew that)
3. in mourning
4. trying to scare people off
5. getting in character for a writing project (although that would be an excellent idea..)
   
6. celebrating Halloween three months early
   
7. testing the temperature difference associated with the absorption of different lengths of the suns rays (I'd have to have multiple nail colors for that anyway)

I just felt like black nails. Simple as that. Although unfortunately for me, I'm not sure my hands have the right bone structure to really pull off black nails.

And while we're on the topic of appearance maintenance, the other day I did a bit of pondering while streamlining the appearance of my eyebrows. I heard recently that overplucking hairs can be harmful as it can sometimes damage the roots. As I removed a few more wayward hairs, I reflected that I would not mind too much if these roots were damaged and the hairs never grew back. But then again, one must always consider that styles do change, and if natural, bushy eyebrows were to become all the rage in the next few years, then I might just care that my damaged roots refused to grow properly bushy eyebrows. And while I don't think bushy eyebrows are an especially likely trend shift, I must admit it is possible. After all, there was a point in history when no eyebrows were the proper mark of beauty, as evidenced by Leonardo and his Mona Lisa. And of course anyone whose scene some of those old movies can tell you that big eyebrows did in fact come back. Who can say whether we're on the way to more or less eyebrow hair? But perhaps it's worth considering that all the pain we ritually put ourselves through is all just for a passing fad...