On Tweezing and Writing

I always wanted cute eyebrows like the other girls. You know -- the kind that curve and then come down perfectly in just the right spot. But no. My eyebrows wander haphazardly across my forehead like a village of lost caterpillars.

"Don't do it," my friend Amy warned when I told her I wanted to fix my brows. "Don't touch them."

Amy and I have been friends since we were three years old. She has seen the effects of my impulsive self-makeovers.

"Do you not remember the perm that made you look like Richard Simmons?" she asked. "Or the rub-on tan that turned you into a crunchy carrot stick?"

"But…"

"I'm telling you," she said. "Leave this to the professionals."

"Leave this to the professionals," I told myself as I walked into the salon. "Leave this to the professionals." But somehow placing my fuzzy face into the hands of a stranger with hot wax was not comforting… no matter how professional that stranger was.

"Waxing?" the man at the counter asked when he took one look at my caterpillars.

"Yes. How'd you…"

"Right this way."

What happened next is a secret every salon guards more carefully than the government guards its most filthy dirt.

"Lie down," the woman with the hot wax said. That's right. You read that correctly. She told me to lie down.

"Excuse me?" I asked. "What is this? Minor surgery?"

"No speak English," she said. "Lie down."

I made her job easy, because with the words "No speak English," every hair on my entire body stood on end.

What was I doing? I wondered. What was I thinking?

RIP! RIP! Suddenly my face stung like I'd spent 2 days on the beach with no sunscreen.

"Did you leave my eyelashes?" I asked.

Hot Wax Lady eyed me suspiciously as she plopped the mirror in my lap. Shakily, I picked it up and stared.

"You like?" she asked, smiling.

"I… I… I…" I tried to breathe.

It's a good thing I was already on my back.

I'd never seen anything like it. Tiny strands of hair wandered aimlessly above my eyelids. Everything else was gone. Gone.

I didn't like the caterpillars, but they were better than the little line of picnic ants now wandering across my skull.

My puffy eyes welled with tears. How could I ever show my face in public again?

"Looks nice," Hot Wax Lady said. "Seven dollars."

It's been 2 days since I almost slugged Hot Wax Lady. I taught her a few new words in English, but I'm not sure I can repeat them here.

What I can repeat here is that I learned something from all of this. The more I thought about it the more I realized -- my eyebrows weren't the only thing that could be over-waxed.

No, I'm not talking about the hair on my upper lip. I am talking about my words. That's right -- my words.

I don't know about you, but sometimes a little voice inside of me whispers, "Hey you! Your prose is wild, fluffy, and distracting. Rip it out!"

That voice is right. Unfortunately, I take it a little too seriously. My self-edits leave the piece looking like a red, puffy, swollen wordless wonder. The journalist inside of me screams, "Just the facts! Just the facts!" And I obey.

If you're like me and you tend to over-edit, here's a piece of advice: ask someone else to do it for you. Or in the words of my friend Amy, LEAVE THIS TO THE PROFESSIONALS.

But do yourself favor. If that editor says, "No speak English," run out of the door as fast as your hairy little legs can carry you.

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B.J. Hamrick is a journalist, newspaper columnist, and Real Teen Faith editor-est.