I draw in my eyebrows. It's not that I don't have eyebrows, it's just that they're faint and sparse and almost completely blend in with my skin. Every morning, I take an eyebrow pencil and outline the shape and color them in with gentle, even little strokes. I've been doing this for ten years, ever since I had my eyebrows waxed when a co-worker of mine- who happened to be a part-time beauty school student- decided to play make-up doll with me. The waxing, that was okay. Painful in a a way that only progress can be, and I've been tweezing ever since in the same general arc. She also taught me how to use concealor, which I had never used before, and to use three different colors of eye shadow for contouring and shading. She picked out blush for my cheeks and instructed me on the art of applying it with a huge brush she'd purchased at the hardware store. She curled my eye lashes and lined my eyes in black. She confided in me that real women don't just use lipstick on their lips- they use a shiny gloss and a matte color and liner for good measure.

I followed through with her complex make-up regiment for a few months after her lessons, and then, bit by bit, the whorish, clownish, acne-inducing layers started falling by the wayside. It was more of a time management thing. It was more because I was lazy. And then, after a while, it was because I simply didn't care. However, the one thing that I am diligent about is the eyebrow coloring. If somebody knocks on my door in the morning, the first thing I think is, "Are my eyebrows on?" I don't look like ME without them properly shaped and colored. I look like a space alien. I look like I've gone back in time and almost prevented my parents from getting married, and instead of my hand disappearing while I play the guitar at their prom, it's my eyebrows that are fading out first. And I'm scared.

Anyway, everything's been fine with my eyebrows for the past decade, but recently something happened. The company that carried the eyebrow pencil in my specific, particular shade of brown simply stopped creating that color. I searched several stores while my panic built up to a crescendo. Then I did what I had to do and bought another shade of brown. I forgot about the dire situation until I used my last shade of Perfect Jackie Brown pencil down to its nub and opened my new pencil and began to apply. Oh... fuck. Oh...no. The new pencil was more green than brown, somehow, and my newly painted eyebrows were like two olive caterpillars slapped carelessly over my eyes. This would simply not do, I told myself as I drove to work with my green eyebrows- as green eyebrows are better than no eyebrows.

And so the search for the right color began. In the past few months, I've used every shade of brown I could find. The results have been as follows:

Too green, like caterpillars.

Too red, like my eyebrows bled for a few days and then just scabbed up.

Too yellow, like my face was oozing two strategically symmetric curves of puss.

Too tan, blends right in with the whole Mediterranean glow I've got going on.

Too dark, makes my eyebrows POP like that baby on The Simpsons with the one black eyebrow.

I'm at the point where I don't know what to do. I'm wondering what the people who see me everyday must be thinking. Do they wonder why my eyebrows change every day? Why they always look different and never look right? Do they think I've got severe emotional issues and I'm choosing to express my angst and depression through the colors etched above my eyes? Do they think that I must be BLIND to leave the house with those twin disasters beneath my forehead? Sometimes I want to simply interrupt people when I see their eyes wandering to the brows. Listen, I want to say. I know. It's a disaster. But until I can find the right shade of brown, I'm going to be looking a little wierd, so get used to it.

Instead, I say nothing, and then escape into the bathroom where I can closely examine my face and wonder where it all went wrong. Was it really just recently when my personal color got somehow discontinued? Or was it ten years ago, when the part-time beauty school student made me aware of the many, many issues surrounding this face of mine? Ignorance, they say, is bliss. Not knowing that your eyebrows can look any different? Ecstasy.