I just spent the last 18 minutes watching a YouTube video on one Australian woman’s experience of eyebrow tattooing. What is happening to me?
The video is four years old and I was the 5476th viewer, so it’s not as if it’s a must watch. And there’s plenty of real news going on in the world: earthquakes, plane crashes, Trudeau resigning, Zuckerberg getting rid of moderators – so what am I doing?
Obsessing over my appearance is not normal for me, and I’ve got slacker as I’ve got older. It’s often hours after a meal before I discover the spinach between my teeth, because I’m not in the habit of checking myself out in mirrors that often these days. In fact, the poor young woman who was giving breathless daily updates on her brow tattoo journey was to be pitied, in my view. So self involved! Don’t you have something better to do with your time, young lady? I suppose I don’t have TikTok so the whole idea of influencers is bizarre to me.
The thing is, I was chatting to one of our regular nurses in theatre the other day, coincidentally also a friend on Duolingo where she is learning Swedish, and she mentioned she’d had eyeliner tattoos done. Well, she looked great, so I got in touch with the clinic where she’d had hers done and the long and short of it is, I got eyeliner tattoos a couple of days ago.
My first ever tattoos! The procedure was fairly painless as they put on a numbing cream beforehand which was almost working by the time they started. So, that initial feeling of having your eyelashes pulled out one by one soon faded.
I was given a three page document on extensive and complicated after care which I hope is discretionary as I’m ignoring most of it. So, if my eyelids dissolve into a couple of bags of pus over the next few days, it won’t be the clinic’s fault. (Lawyers note: not to be used as evidence in a court of law).
So far, so good. The trouble is, I happened to mention to the tattoo artist that I couldn’t imagine ever having my brows done, because brow fashions change so much. Ah but classic style never goes out of fashion! and quicker than you can say “$100 deposit”, she’d mocked up my potential new brows, which I adored, and I’d signed up to have them done too, next week. Things are still a bit quiet on the work front after the festive period, so the timing is good from that perspective. But I’m still a bit bemused as to how I got here.
I’ve asked my family for advice, one daughter pointing out that I’ve never been trendy as far as my brows are concerned, which I’m taking to be a compliment. Since then, I’ve been doing my due diligence. Hence the tedious YouTube videos.
My other obsessions at the moment are:
Nespresso v Vertuo – a real coffee machine alternative or a shameless money grab by the company now that Nespresso is off patent? (I am gradually working my way through a sample box of both sorts of pods to answer this question.)
How to make our fence Ratdog proof, as she combines a belligerent attitude with supreme athletic abilities, an unhappy mix when you live next to a nature reserve.
and, what sort of e-bike should I get for my very specific needs? (And if you could see the number of tabs open on my browser you’d have some idea of the hours I’ve put into that particular question.)
So you see, the issue of my appearance is just a little light relief for me at present. It would also be fair to say that all my current obsessions fit snuggly within the category of First World Problems.