Just for today, it's OK to have bushy eyebrows. In three days, when I get paid, I will be able to go to my eyebrow lady and she can pluck and shape my eyebrows appropriately. I am not defined by my facial hair. Likewise, it's OK that my pedicure is slightly chipped. My worth is not defined by the eveness of my nailpolish. Nonetheless, I can acknowledge that I feel uncomfortable with this excess hair and chipped polish. While inside I may feel like a scraggly, hairy beast, I know that "scraggly, hairy, beast" is not a feeling. Just for today, I am a spirit inhabiting a body. And if anyone has a problem with ill defined eyebrows, I can tell myself that what other people think is non of my business. Just for today, it's OK to not look together in the city of Los Angeles. God does not judge me by my eyebrows or pedicure.

The irony of forgiveness is that in order to pardon we must ask to be pardoned. The irony of push-up bras is that they blow my whole feminist cover, and boy do they make a difference! The humility that forgiveness requires is nothing compared to the freedom gained. There is no humility in push-up bras. Forgiveness means that I seek to understand, rather than be understood. Push-up bras mean that I look like I have a whole lot more to offer than I actually do.

Just for today, I can forgive my father for his attitudes about women...and I can forgive myself for totally buying into the beauty standard.

Surely, it's for myself, (as I am currently between boyfriends, otherwise known as Single). It's important for my own self-love that I can appreciate how fabulous I look, feel and am. I know that, while fat is not a feeling, fabulousness certainly is. But if it's just a feeling, what's with the expensive highlights and eyebrow styling? And while I don't think I'll ever find incissions or the odd insertion of lipids into other parts of my body, attractive or appealing, surely years of highlights will add up and expose me to cancer causing agents. So, what's the deal? So long as I don't smell bad, isn't inner-beauty enough? I suppose some day I'll surely be toothless and mushy, and then my husband will have no choice but to appreciate my inner-beauty (hell, he can wallow in it at that point). But until then, I suppose I can look at my monthly self-care expenditure as the equivalent of home-improvement expenditures (after all, does anyone HAVE to re-paint the bathroom or landscape the garden?).

Just for today, it's OK to LOOK fabulous (for those days when I'm not quite feelin' it).

If there's one thing I've learned, you can't rush a manicure/pedicure job (especially the drying part). I have yet to step outside a nail salon with the paint job intact. And that's with several reapplications by the nail specialists who rush over to me once they've seen the bang-up job I've done with the dryer and just waving my fingers around.

Last night I dropped in to get my nails done because I was too embarrassed to look at my own toes and fingers, let alone show them to the world. I didn't have enough cash so I had to wander outside barefoot to the market only to find that I overdrafted because...[insert reason here]. Needless, to say all the touch-ups in the world couldn't hide the damage to their work. I think they felt bad for me when they saw that I was having a meltdown. I just don't have the commitment or patience for grooming.

Just for today, it's OK to mess up my nails.

I've always been very ashamed of my feet. And when the pedicure is getting old and chipped, they could easily be cast in a horror movie as the Neglected Feet of some dead person...So after the umpteenth yoga classes where I stared at my hideous feet from Downward Dog, I decided it was time to get a pedicure.

I picked out a light shade of pink and sat down to soak my feet. When my pedicurist began taking the polish off my feet, she laughed and said something to the other pedicurist. As usual, I was positive that they were taking advantage of the fact that Vietnamese is not a language taught in American schools to jest to each other about my hideous feet. My knowledge of Asian languages is so limited that they could have been talking about Roe v. Wade, but I was certain that they were saying:

"Well, Vo, you certainly have got your work cut out for you there!"

"Oh, this is nothing. Remember that hippy who hadn't worn shoes for a year?! That was bad! Although, this is pretty close..."

Interestingly, the woman sitting next to me hadn't shaved her legs in about a month. Apparently, well manicured hands and feet are higher up on the beauty standard hierarchy of priorities. For me, well groomed eyebrows take precedence over a pedicure or manicure. For another, botox might take precedence over basic hygiene. To each, their own.

At one point, one of the pedicurists started speaking in English about a man she had seen that morning who walked as if he were dancing a Fosse number. She imitated his walk and we all laughed...That is, except for Unshaven Legs, who stared at the wall and occasionally jotted things down in her notebook. I guess life is very serious when you get pedicures and don't shave your legs. "Let Vietnamese pedicurists laugh at the absurdity of life...not me...I am busy writing about spirituality and relationships (I know she was writing about those things because I peeked at her notebook)." I got out my notebook and wrote a note for this blog about the woman writing in her notebook. (I think writers are allowed to be nosy about others who carry notebooks...but the truth is, I didn't see that much. Maybe she was writing about her gloriously shaven legs?)

It was fun hanging out at the nail salon, until someone decided to choose their cell phone ringer and all quiet was brought to an end. Then it was times for my nails to be dry.

Just for today, my feet look presentable.

I got a pedicure and chose the color purple thinking it would bring my feet to a new level of hipness. I didn't think realize that I had chosen the same shade of purple that my toe becomes when I stub it against something. So now I look like I have ten injured digits on my feet. However, they do match my yoga mat now which gives me something to focus on instead of the fact that after six months I can still only barely touch the floor when I bend over.

Just for today, I have purple toes.

Contrary to popular opinion, being hot doesn't have everything to do with being young, thin, and endowed with Angelina Jolieish-lips. I mean those things help, don't get me wrong. But the truth is that what, in my experience, really attracts male attention (and this has been proven time and again by myself and my friends) is not giving a rat's ass about it. But in order for this to work, you have to REALLY not give a rat's ass. Not just pretend to. It's almost a mystical experience.

I can be walking down the street with make-up and tears streaming down my face (I was sad), hair unwashed (it was a Sunday), roots totally showing all over the place (I'm having a "hair" crisis), haven't worked out in weeks (I've been sick for an eternity), and wearing my weekend jeans (they are no longer suitable for work) and have guys walking right up to me. This happend to me this past Sunday and I wanted to look at them and say, "Are you out of your mind? I'm not even feeling hot!" Apparently, feeling "hot" isn't all it's cracked up to be either. I can feel as hot as Scarlett Johansen in "Match Point," but that doesn't mean that anybody else is buying it. It's got to be a total and utter state of not giving a #&@! It may possibly come from crossing the line from hopeful desperation ("he's out there, I know just know it!"), to the acceptance that you may never have a loving relationship with a man and maybe that's not the end of the world...in fact, maybe that's a lot of energy that can be put into another areas.

Prolong states of celibacy may have something to do with it as well.

Just for today, I can be scraggly and "hot."

It was almost twelve years ago that I was walking down the street in Westwood when a Persian guy approached me and asked if he could cut my hair. I had a short pixie cut at the time (even though my friend's told me it looked "cute," I think it was my "don't notice me" phase...). It was getting shaggy and he had a slightly smarmy vibe that felt oddly comfortable, so I said yes.

Twelve years later, the smarmy energy hasn't let up a bit. Over the past decade he has asked me countless times about my sex life and it took that long for me to inform him I don't need to hear about his sexual forays. Which is not to say that he isn't compassionate and caring and a great listeners. My eyebrow lady works in his salon and the two of them know my life story as well, if not better, than my therapist. I feel like I've grown up there. They taught me how to grieve over boyfriends, eat Persian food, and deal with facial hair (not that I have any...). My eyebrow lady has been married for 50 years and from her I've gotten some modeling of a real long-term partnership. Like any relationship that has survived the trial of time and growth, they feel like family.

I guess next to therapists, hair dressers are a grounding center of most women's life and leaving one can be seriously traumatic. I know of a friend who tolerated an 80's style hair cut for years to avoid the pain of leaving her guy.

Ultimately, I do like my hair and eyebrows. I come out of there feeling fresh and brand new. But even if I didn't, it would be hard to try someone new. There is something weirdly intimate about hair, that makes the hair dresser/client relationship important in myterious ways...

Just for today, I love getting my hair and eyebrows done!

I had a session with my Eyebrow Lady on Friday (I just couldn't keep plucking them while driving) and plopped down on her chair in exhaustion from the work week. She told me that in Iran people work very hard and, yet, unlike in America, they have plenty of energy to go out every night. But do they do Power Yoga three times a week? Didn't think so. I think I'm right in assuming that this torture is unique to Americans working out their perfectionist issues as related to body image AND spirituality ( as in "I am living SO much more in moment than blanketyblank!"). Between all the physical and mental exertion, who has time for real life experiences? In Iran there is a special night of the week considered to be particularly conducive to procreation (Thursday...odd, I know). I think what she has really been trying to tell me over the past seven years (I think I need to start taking notes) is that Americans (like me) need to have more guilt-free, unencumbered sex. No argument here...

Just for today, I can listen to my Eyebrow Lady.

Yesterday, I went back to my natural hair color (SFX: angels sing).

I just couldn't take the stress and financial strain of the upkeep. Not to mention the tinge of betrayal experienced by my soul each time I looked in the mirror. Over the last few months, whenever anyone paid me a compliment regarding my hair (nothing major...just like, "Hey, your hair looks nice today" sort of thing) I would grab some strands and shout, "THIS IS NOT THE REAL ME!" Said person would then wonder why he/she had bothered acknowledging my appearance seeing as I am at war with myself and unable to receive a compliment.

Just for today, I can be a brunette.

Despite so much pressure to believe the contrary, I'm convinced that a woman can pull off any given anti-beauty standard attributes (wrinkles, age, weight, etc.) while maintaining her "hotness" given the right combination of attitude and confidence (i.e., Susan Sarandon, Meryl Streep, Kate Winslet...not that these women aren't gorgeous, but they aren't teen-aged stick figures). Men, generally, do this better (i.e., Sean Connery, Harrison Ford...though, it seems like these days male-mojo hinges more on compulsive gym workout, metro-facials, and chest waxing than ever before...welcome to our world, men).

But I digress...I bring this up because such was the line of thinking I entertained when I decided to go out and get coffee in my yoga pants having gained back the weight that I had I lost that I had gained over the Holidays. Or maybe this is Valentine's Day chocolate weight? Or, bran muffin and bagel weight? Or, coffee creamer weight? Or, maybe it's how God intended me to be? Whatever it is, it's glued itself onto my thighs and doesn't seem to be going anywhere in the next 24 hours.

So, throwing all of my obsessive self-consciousness to the wind, I made the bold move of venturing forth into the fabulousness of Santa Monica in my booty-flab revealing yoga pants. To top it off, I wore non-thong underwear, thus, violating LA's fashions edict on two fronts: thigh flab and underwear line (I won't even get into my unpedicured feet because that's another blog). But, I decided it was time to cease investing my energy in such lame-ass pursuits as conforming to impossible beauty standards because A) I am not impressing anybody anyway, B) I don't know who it is I'm trying to impress who I'm not impressing C) even if I did know who I was trying to impress and failing to impress, why do I even care? and D) I'm really tired of trying to impress these mysterious people!

For these reasons and others (that flew out of my short-attention span brain no sooner than they arrived), I decided that life is too f---ing short to worry about whether or not I'm showing the world exactly where my butt folds over on itself (is this too much info?...if so, too bad). In short, I decided to stage a Sunday morning mini-revolt against the heartless pressure of conformity on behalf of thigh-flab and granny underwear lines everywhere. My inner-hippy came out and showed her stuff (wouldn't you rather read about child-rearing, or Iraq, or global warming, or the latest conspiracy theory on 9/11?...me either)!

Maybe, on some minute level, the peace of the world does hinge on my acceptance of who I am. But if not, at least I feel better.

Just for today, I can accept my imperfections.

Like many women in LA who populate nail salons, stores, and hair removal shops (do they have a name?) on the weekends, I put my fair share of time and energy working on the upkeep. I'm not complaining about it. I understand it's a personal choice to do the eyebrows and comparative bra shopping (and I'm not talking about price), and I know I don't have to. I grew up around enough braless hairy women (mom) to understand the power of not giving a rat's ass and I respect it. But that was in a hippy town in the 70's. I now live in Los Angeles in the 21st century. Bill Maher once said that any woman would rather be considered "hot" than "smart" (though, I'm sure "hot and smart" might top the list for many). I suppose such is the nature of our consumer culture. If we have enough convenience, quantity, and sexual appeal all our problems will be solved and the gates of heaven will open up and bestow eternal youth and organic flour-free baked goods upon our exfoliated souls (I'm sorry, but the skin peel things is scary). I'm not saying that I agree with Bill Maher, but, for whatever reason (insecurity, fear, boredom), I've done my fair share of searching in the pursuit of "hotness"...

And then what happens? Along comes an attractive male who I might consider getting to know (it could be in the salsa world...but maybe not) who then proceeds to engage with me as a sexual object. Ew. I'm horrified and thoroughly grossed out. All this work, to feel offended AND nauseated. Thanks to years of therapy, I'm not so jaded as to hate or resent men, but, nonetheless, this is not the experience I've been looking for. Plus, I'm old enough to know that sexual attraction can last anywhere between .005 seconds to three months. I'm not saying I'm going to tatoo Shakespeare sonnets on my forehead and grow out my armpit hair, but the appeal of sexual appeal is really starting to lose its power. There's nothing wrong with hot. Hot is fine. So are jelly beans and soy lattes. They just will never give meaning to my life.

Just for today, I'm hot enough.

I got a pedicure on Friday and, as usual, I assumed my pedicurist was chattering on in Vietnamese about my scary feet (for all I know she's talking about her own scary feet...but when you're self-absorbed you assume it's always about you). I always tip well when I get a pedicure because when it comes to my toes I know those ladies are workin'. It was a job before salsa, but now...fugitaboutit. I'll put it this way, one toe nail came off completely while I was sitting in the chair (actually, I pulled it off, but only because I knew she wouldn't...). As usual, it was a bonding experience that ended in a hug...

On Saturday night I experienced yet another wardrobe malfunction. I know it's very unladylike of me not to be bothered with things like tags and full-on bra cup making a showing...but...geez, I guess I just get too busy dancing.

Between the scary feet and wardrobe issues, I have to admit, I have serious issues in Maintenance 101. Was I just born this way?

Just for today, I accept my difficulties with beauty and image maintenance (which sucks when you live in LA).

I can't decide if it's the job that's giving me my recent bedraggled, agitated, this-better-be-important look, or if it's my new fashion statement. Talk about sustainability. Or, maybe, I just enjoy feeling superior to caffeine-free, well-rested people who notice the weather and look forward to the Holidays.

Just for today, I can examine my motives for looking haggard.

I was sitting in the massage chair at the Nail Salon, and looking up at the television set when I caught a glimpse of a shot of what looked like dead sea creatures. "Hmmmm...is this some Vietnamese cooking show?" I wondered. It took a good five minutes for the protective layers of denial in my brain to realize that I was watching an anti-abortion show on a Vietnamese stations. Yes, I was getting a pedicure and watching footage of dead babies...so much for a relaxing spa day.

"What happened to them?!" cried the Vietnamese Pedicurist who owns the shop (I should probably know her name by now) as she sat glued to images of dead infants and body parts.

"It's an anti-abortion show..." I said while I tried not to puke.

The other Pedicurists gathered around and also watched in horror. I wanted to advise them to turn it off as it might not be good for finding new clients, but they were hooked.

"Would you like a magazine?" asked the woman filing my toe-nails.

Are you kidding? Dead babies or Kelly Clarkson's weight fluctuations?

Just for today, I can support the local nail salon.