MARCH 13, 2002

Today is the day to sharpen your pencil and resist the urge to poke yourself with it.

You guys have no idea what we girls go through. The highlights, the trims, the deep conditioning, the straightening, the curling, the plucking, the dying, the blowdrying. And that's all just on the top of our head.

Every once in a while I go through a certain female maintenance phase that I sooner or later give up, either out of expense, pain, or lack of novelty.

Lately it's tanning. I saw a picture of myself from some party in January and thought to myself: "Geez, am I that pale?" I had just been visiting a girlfriend of mine who was extolling the virtues of fake baking and I was tempted. I get nice and brown in the summertime but then hideously pale (not pretty porcelain pale) in the wintertime. Tanning creams stink and don't work. Bronzing makeup is ridiculous, like when Eddie Murphy got made up like a white guy on "Saturday Night Live."

Tanning's one of those things that people look down upon, like smoking or plastic surgery even though it's a personal thing (okay, well I admit I've never heard of secondhand breast implants.) I'm sure I've done the same and probably will in the future, but ohhh...it's so nice. I love walking up to the salon and being greeted by the mixed scent of old coffee and coconut tanning cream. I love getting out of my sweaty clothes (I go from the gym) and listening to music for 20 minutes in my little sun-cocoon-coffin. It's a real pleasure to be completely cut off from the world for a while. I'm not working, I'm not watching TV, I'm not checking email, I'm not working out. I'm just relaxing under the ultraviolet sun and wearing a ridiculous little pair of goggles.

And the results? Boy howdy! I just hope that I don't become 'tanorexic:' a sad syndrome by which people (it's not only restricted to women) never thing they're tan enough and get darker and darker until they look like cheap leather. So far I'm restricting my time but already I can feel the effects...the last time I went, I looked in the mirror and didn't see any difference.

I won't, I won't become tanorexic. After all, sooner or later I'm bound to give this up and take up some other meaningless cosmetic behavior. Probably eyebrow threading. So you'll know when I give up tanning when you see me with my eyebrows drawn on.