eyebrows

Not just eyebrows, but eyelashes, the peach fuzz that is a part of a human face, and all the more obvious patches of hair on our bodies. They aren't all gone, but they're compromised.
Frankly, I think I've been handling the lack of head hair pretty well. I went to Jo Ann Fabrics when they were having a sale on gauze, and I got enough for several scarves or head wraps. A friend (thanks, Lisa) gave me two custom-designed hats, and I knitted myself a turban thingy from bamboo yarn. I rather enjoy the chance for creativity. (Besides, the hair is actually starting to grow back. I have tiny quarter-inch wisps in places. The bad news is that the crop doesn't seem to have been evenly sowed, and besides, since it's all white you can't see much anyhow. In a good light I look a bit as though I'd butted into a spider web.)
But that leaves the rest. The good news is that I haven't had to shave my legs or under my arms for two and a half months. And let's not even think about bikini waxes, because I certainly don't have to.
The face is different. You can't wrap cloth around the face, at least not in this culture, and without eyebrows and eyelashes the whole character disappears. What annoyed me was that the hairs stayed on long enough that I thought they wouldn't fall out, but suddenly just this past week they've been going.
I'm wearing a lot of makeup, for me at least, these days. Without it I'm pale enough that if you set me up against some woodwork, I'll fade right in.
Yesterday, though, it really struck me that I have to draw eyebrows over my eyes. A face without eyebrows has a the look of someone trying to suppress strong emotion -- or the look of someone with no emotions. I played with the eyebrow pencil, drawing in the diagonal slashes of an angry samurai, little clown circumflexes, Brooke Shield dashes, 1940's single-stroke arches.... They all looked remarkably silly. I finally decided on the non-commital feathery strokes that the women's magazines and cancer sites recommend. By noon they've faded, and I'm back to looking like the Betsy Wetsy doll I had when I was four. I don't know if I disliked her more for her incontinence or her lack of expression.