<![CDATA[Welcome to All Things Stacey Longo

<![CDATA[Welcome to All Things Stacey Longo - My Blog]]>Sat, 26 Oct 2024 13:06:15 -0700Weebly<![CDATA[Life Has Changed]]>Sat, 15 Feb 2020 03:15:46 GMThttp://staceylongo.com/staceymusings/life-has-changedA few of my readers may have noticed my blog updates have been sporadic at best the past several months. There’s a good reason for this: I’ve gone through a few major life changes over the past year, and those things have taken priority over writing whimsical posts about dieting or the joys of discovering a new chin hair and plucking it before a coworker points it out to you. In the past twelve months, I’ve had major surgery, lost my job, started a new, better job, had some of the most important people in my life get diagnosed with major health issues, gotten divorced, and become the primary food dispenser and attention-giver to a dog. All of these things alone require a lot of energy to handle. To have a bunch of them going on at once has, in short, made it impossible for me to focus any time on churning out witty anecdotes about the cadaver bone I now (proudly) sport in my back.

I know there’s a story there in the cadaver bone thing. What I’m saying is I don’t have the energy nor the desire to write that story right now.

After thinking long and hard about how much I dislike the guilty feeling I get when another Friday rolls around and I don’t have another entry ready to go, I’ve decided to put this blog on hiatus until life calms down a little. I apologize if this is traumatic or upsetting to anyone (like my mom or Auntie Joanne, my two most faithful readers). My hope is to jump back into it someday, but for now, I need a break.

As does the dog. She’s doing her little “I’m about to go potty, you want me to do that here, or shall we go outside?” dance right now. Forgive me, but I have to go for a while.

I’ll see you again soon. Thanks for reading.

I'm okay with this.

]]><![CDATA[Men Have No Clue]]>Sun, 12 Jan 2020 22:12:26 GMThttp://staceylongo.com/staceymusings/men-have-no-clueI’ve been lax on updating my blog in recent weeks. In my defense, I’m going through a highly stressful time in my personal life. Of course, whenever one is feeling like they can’t handle any other crises without losing their mind, that’s usually when the universe says, “Let’s test that theory, shall we?” and dumps a whole bunch more on your shoulders. Last week, the universe did this with a little trick I like to call the Flawed Mammogram.

You ladies know what I’m talking about, but for you men, let me explain: this is when a woman goes for a mammogram because that’s what we’re told we should do the day after our fortieth birthday and then once a year for the rest of our lives. The Flawed Mammogram is when you get a call from the doctor saying you need to come backin for a second mammogram and possibly an ultrasound, but they won’t tell you why. Then they give you an appointment date that is either a month out or three days out. Both are troublesome: a month out gives you thirty whole days to wonder if they scheduled it that far out to make sure the oncologist will be available to meet with you, whereas three days out begs the question, Why do they want to see me so quickly?

Back in November, my employer made it very convenient for me to get a mammogram. They had a mobile mam-van park behind our building, and offered free mammograms to all their employees. Of course I took advantage of this. I should’ve known better. See, I come from a long line of women with dense breasts, which is just a nice way of saying we have fatty boobs. It’s hard to get a good mammogram reading with us, because blobs of fat—sorry, dense materials—often look like giant tumors onscreen. That I dared to try and get this done in something called a mam-van was pretty foolish.

Of course, I got the call to come in for a second one. Except this time, instead of going to the friendly neighborhood mammography facility, they wanted me to go to the hospital. In a month. Which, in my mind, was just enough time to coordinate my visit with the oncologist, grief counselor, and a local hospice care representative.

The day of my visit, they made me wait over an hour for the results of my second—and entirely more painful—mammogram. During that time, I called my attorney to update my will, phoned my parents to tell them I loved them, and Googled the nearest hospice center’s lunch menu, all while wearing a paper top fashioned out of a napkin. When the nurse finally came back, she told me I needed an ultrasound. “How soon?” I asked. “They’re serving corn chowder at the Comfort Care Center around the block at noon.” She assured me I would not be making lunch hour, and parked me in another room to wait, this time with my napkin shirt over my face and cold goo on my chest. Seriously, you men have no idea how humiliating this whole process can be.

Half an hour later, a technician ran a chilly ultrasound thingie over my cleavage, and announced that I was fine. “Huh?” I said, looking around for the oncologist.

“You have fatty boobs,” she said.

“You kept me here for three hours to tell me that?” I ground my teeth so hard my cheeks filled with enamel dust.

“Yup!” She was entirely too cheerful. “Here you go—this is the 2020 schedule for the mam-van. See you then!”

I can’t wait.

By the way, this hurts.

]]><![CDATA[Self-Care During the Holidays]]>Fri, 13 Dec 2019 19:12:56 GMThttp://staceylongo.com/staceymusings/self-care-during-the-holidaysDuring the holiday season, as you battle crowded malls, the pressure of coming up with a happy holiday message for your Christmas cards, and being accosted for donations at every grocery store entrance, it’s important to work self-care into your routine to help combat your no doubt off-the-charts stress levels. I like to make self-care a priority every day of my life. How do I do this? Not with yoga (causes flatulence) or spa days (I have a mortgage to pay), but with little things that make me happier overall. Like coffee.

Coffee is a priority in my life. If I don’t have it, I’m not very nice to be around, and I don’t care, because I don’t want to be around anyone anyway if I’m not fully caffeinated. I make sure every weekend that I have enough iced coffee available to make it through my morning commute during the week. I sip my mug o' java as I pre-portion this out, adding my favorite non-dairy, fat-free, gluten-free creamer (self-care!). Then on Sunday morning, the dog starts whining and I can’t figure out why because “Do you need to go out?” and “Did you lose your toy?” and “Do you want an ice cube?” elicit no response and Idon’tknowwhatshewantssoIcan’thelpheraargghh . . . and I power-chug the entire week’s worth of pre-made iced coffee to soothe my frustration. See? Self-care.

If coffee isn’t your thing, there are other ways to take time for yourself over the holidays. Perhaps you find baking cookies a chore, or too time-consuming. I’m here to tell you it is perfectly acceptable to buy those pre-cut refrigerated cookie dough things and plan on throwing those in the oven before the next holiday pot luck at work. And when you shove your way through the crowds at Kohl’s to the shoe department because they have the perfect black boots for your sister on sale, taking an elbow to the eye socket and a kick to the knee that takes you down, but you manage to crawl to the chunky black boots section only to find the only size left is twelve, and mysisterisnotBigfootthankyouwhatthehellamIgoingtogethernow . . . it is perfectly acceptable to eat those refrigerated pre-cut cookies raw when you get home, and bring in cups and napkins for the pot luck.

Self-care. It should be our top priority this holiday season. Bring on the cookie dough and coffee!

Two short barks means "Bring me a chew stick," you stupid human.

]]><![CDATA[Straight Outta New England]]>Fri, 22 Nov 2019 23:32:26 GMThttp://staceylongo.com/staceymusings/straight-outta-new-englandIf you don’t live in New England, you might be unaware of the delicate social nuances that must be followed if you want to survive in our region. It’s not just about the crazy weather, or the potholes on the highway that must be navigated like an obstacle course. No, it goes deeper than that.

On Monday, it was a balmy 22 degrees out when I made my first gaffe of the week. I’d followed my old tried-and-true “throw on clothes that are clean” method, inadvertently selecting a midnight green shirt, black pants, a charcoal cardigan, and silver jewelry. I received no less than 46 death threats on my walk into work. Turns out these are the official colors of the Philadelphia Eagles, whom the New England Patriots had played the night before. My outfit was an affront not only to all things holy about football in general, but a direct insult against Tom Brady in particular. Luckily, my boss let me go home at lunchtime to change, mostly because he was embarrassed to have me working for him.

Tuesday, I made another silly mistake. I stopped for gas, and decided to go inside the Cumberland Farms to get a cup of coffee while the fuel was pumping. As I strolled to the counter with my steaming cup, I foolishly smiled at the cashier and wished her a good morning. Something you should know about Connecticut people in particular: we do not greet each other at the store or anywhere public in general, unless we’re related by blood. The cashier’s eyes widened and she hit the silent alarm in panic. You can imagine how fun it was to try and explain to the cops that I’d simply had a momentary lapse of antipathy. After searching my person and my car, they had to let me go, though one issued a warning when I told them to have a nice day.

Wednesday, which was sunny and fifty degrees with a chance of frost overnight, I went to the cafeteria to grab a much-needed cup of coffee. The percolator was, to my horror, empty. I asked the cashier if more was being brewed in back. “Nah. Why don’t you grab a coffee milk instead?”

“Because the point of coffee is caffeine. There’s no caffeine in coffee milk. That’s more like a dessert drink.”

“I don’t follow.”

“I don’t want a coffee milk. I am not five. I’m a grown woman, and I drink actual coffee.” I couldn’t help it. The hostility was coming through in my tone, probably due to lack of caffeine. But she seemed to respond better to anger than politeness.

“There’s a Dunkin’ down the street,” she offered.

I didn’t want to point out that Starbucks makes better coffee. I was just glad she didn’t take my refusal to drink candy milk as a personal slur against Tom Brady.

I just couldn’t seem to get anything right this week. I forgot to bring a reusable bag into the grocery store, and a ninety-four-year-old lady warned me I’d better juggle my groceries to the car rather than give the governor of Connecticut one dime toward his stupid tax on plastic bags. (She followed me to my car, whacking me on the knee with her cane every time I mis-juggled.) I wore my winter coat on a day when it unexpectedly rained, snowed, and hit a high of 76 degrees. I mispronounced Coventry as Coventry, saying it the way Rhode Island people do (“Coven-tree,” like a witches’ coven, instead of “Cawven-tree,” which I can’t even believe I did, because everyone knows Connecticut people don’t have accents, and the way we pronounce everything is the right way). It was a bad week. My boss asked me if I was sure I was even a New Englander.

“I swear I am. I still miss the Hartford Whalers, I’ve had Lyme disease twice, and I firmly believe apple cider vinegar cures everything from sinus infections to nail fungus.”

He said he believed me, but he looked wary. “I’ve got my eye on you. What’s that you’re wearing today? Are those the official colors of the Dallas Cowboys? Go home and change!”

New England: enter at your own risk.

]]><![CDATA[Living Gluten-Free]]>Fri, 08 Nov 2019 20:59:49 GMThttp://staceylongo.com/staceymusings/living-gluten-freeWhen I was first told that my severe intestinal distress, body rashes, and general misery might be because of gluten, I was in denial. Surely pizza, which had given me so much pleasure in my daily life, couldn't be the problem. Could it?

But it was. And facing a life--in which, I might add, food equals love in my family--didn't sound fun . . . it sounded like a death sentence.

I'm happy to report that going gluten free is not as horrible as it sounds. I can still eat rice, potatoes, and risotto, and there are tons of gluten-free pasta and bread options out there now. So, as you might imagine, I was in high spirits when I drove to Whole Foods in Glastonbury, the mecca (I thought) of gluten-free options.

Here's what I expect from my local Whole Foods: fresh produce, a discount because I'm an Amazon Prime member, cool paper bags, and gluten-free crap in every aisle. None of this happened. As soon as I walked in, I made a beeline to where they USED to shelve the gluten-free apple fritters. Today, the shelves were packed with vegan scones.

Yuck.

Scones, by the way, suck. They're dry and flavorless and gross. But I still had high hopes. Surely they'd have gluten-free dough and chips and pirogies, right?

Ha! You naive little butterfly! No such luck. The only gluten-free thing they had was cheese, which admittedly, I bought 500 dollars worth. They had no gluten-free chips. They had no pirogies, flourless or otherwise. And dough? No such luck. They told me to try the bakery up the street.

After I rolled over a CD to pay for my one bag of groceries, I drove to said bakery. They had everything I'd ever fantasized about since having to eliminate gluten: ravioli, iced cakes, whoopee pies. It was amazing. I spent a mortgage payment there. It was worth it.

"Do you have dough?" I asked, perhaps naively. The woman behind the counter shot me a death glare.

"If we sold dough, you wouldn't need to buy whoopee pies from us, would you?"

She had a point.

If you have to go gluten free, I can assure you that it isn't as hard as it sounds. Most meat, all veggies, and all fruits are safe. You know what isn't safe? Asking the local gluten-free bakery for a batch of their dough.
]]><![CDATA[Fun Costume Ideas]]>Sat, 19 Oct 2019 20:51:10 GMThttp://staceylongo.com/staceymusings/fun-costume-ideasIf you haven’t been planning your Halloween costume since November 1 of last year, then we’re probably not friends, but I’m here to help anyway. Perhaps you’re thinking of going the cheap route: a black garbage bag and a halo, so you can be holy s**t. I’m here to tell you that while yes, I’d chuckle at that, you may want to consider something a little more traditional—but with a twist, of course.

Witch

Cheap, yet practical. It’s easy enough to pick up a witch’s hat for a buck at the Dollar Store. But you won’t be winning any costume prizes with a stupid hat and black dress. If you want to win free food or at least get someone to buy you a drink, I recommend going for a Hollywood witch. If you’re a redhead, do up your hair like Bette Midler in Hocus Pocus and pay the extra buck for a pair of fake buck teeth. If you prefer something a little less elaborate, slap some green makeup on your face and print out a “Wanted: Dorothy (and her little dog, too)” poster. Voila! Now you look creative, with very little effort expended.

Ghost

There’s nothing cheaper—nor more boring—than a ghost. I don’t understand why people bother to cut two holes in a sheet and call it a Halloween costume. This is the easiest thing in the world to class up: simply cut more holes in the sheet, and now you’re Charlie Brown circa It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!, a beloved children’s cartoon.

Zombie

I think we can all agree zombies are overdone. Don’t get me started on how stupid it is that they’re doing another spinoff of The Walking Dead when Fear the Walking Dead is a dumpster fire. Plus, this costume requires ruining clothes and having a makeup artist on hand. Who has time for that? Go for the Charlie Brown ghost instead. You’ll thank me later.

Mummy

In theory, a mummy costume should be easy enough. Any idiot with a roll of toilet paper in the house can construct this. However, the outfit can be cumbersome and tear easily (though you’ll be very popular when the party you’re at runs out of t.p. in the ladies’ room). If you have your heart set on this character, better to just print out a picture of Boris Karloff circa 1932, cut eye holes in it, tape it to a popsicle stick, and use it as a mask. Tell everybody you’re the original mummy. Scorn the people who show up wrapped in toilet paper.

Goblin

Ugh. You’re talking prosthetic noses, spirit gum, and fake back humps here. Did I not mention the Charlie Brown ghost?

There you have it: my guide to putting together a cheap-yet-traditional Halloween costume. Have fun! I’ll be staying home in my pajamas that night.
]]><![CDATA[Mean People Suck]]>Fri, 04 Oct 2019 21:26:03 GMThttp://staceylongo.com/staceymusings/mean-people-suckWhen I worked at the Block Island Grocery, we had one customer who used to come in regularly five minutes before closing and take his sweet time doing his shopping for the week. I tried very hard to be understanding. After all, he was a local, and owned a small business himself. I assumed he simply couldn’t get to the store before then, and maybe felt a little embarrassed that his last-minute antics were causing frustration for so many—after all, we couldn’t start mopping floors or cashing out registers until he left. He was costing my employer overtime, and costing the pub I visited regularly a beer or two, since he was cutting into my drinking time. But surely he had his reasons, so I smiled and greeted him every time he came in, biting back my frustration.

Then the summer came.

At the BIG, the hours always changed when tourist season began. Instead of closing at six, we’d stay open until eight or nine to accommodate the late ferries. That first summer I was manning the register after our hours changed, in walked last-minute Larry at five of six. He seemed to sense immediately something was up, maybe because I hadn’t flinched as I smiled. “What’s going on?” he asked, eyes scanning the bustling grocery. “Did your hours change?” And sure enough, two days later, he strolled in at five of nine, grabbing a carriage for a good, long shop.

Mean people suck.

Why do some make it their daily mission to deliberately make the lives of others miserable? I used to make excuses for people like this. Surely they had a terrible upbringing, or were going through something horrible in their personal lives. Maybe they were walking around with an especially painful ingrown toenail. Who was I to judge?

Except the more I’m around these whiners and curmudgeons, the less I want to deal with them. We all have problems. That most of us choose not to inflict our pain and suffering on those around us makes these jerks even more noticeable. I’ve decided not to deal with them anymore. I wish I could go back in time and tell twenty-three-year-old me to lock up the BIG door five minutes early once in a while.

About three years into my tenure at the grocery store, they renovated. The main entrance moved from the front to the side of the building, and two shiny new full-length windows were installed where the old entrance used to be. Once renovations were complete, we reopened with much fanfare and an especially generous sale on produce.

And true to form, at five of six, up strolled last-minute Larry. He proceeded to smack his face right into those two pretty new windows with a loud thud.

I couldn’t stop myself. I laughed. Then I ran to the new entrance and locked the doors for the night.

Turns out all of us can be mean once in a while.

You know who you are, Larry.

]]><![CDATA[Adventures in Writing]]>Thu, 19 Sep 2019 23:06:39 GMThttp://staceylongo.com/staceymusings/adventures-in-writingMost people think writing is a solitary, quiet job. Writers just sit in front of their computer screens and type away, occasionally breaking to use the bathroom or refill their coffee, right? Not so fast. I’m here to tell you that writing can be a hazardous job.

We face many perils on the road to novelization. For example, just last week, I forgot to charge my laptop, and my battery was dropping power quickly. With only fourteen percent battery life left, no power outlet in sight, and two hundred and fifty-six words left to go, it was a life-or-death race to try and get the story finished before the laptop died completely. Imagine the tension! My heart raced, my pointer finger cramped, and I even almost broke out in a sweat! Luckily, I finished in the nick of time, hit SAVE, then moved into the kitchen, where my next challenge was figuring out which coffee pot to unplug (I own three) so I could hook up the computer’s power cord. Would I cut the juice on the Mr. Coffee, which meant I’d have to reset the clock once I plugged it back in? Or would the Keurig take the hit, meaning I’d have to brew a whole pot of coffee if I wanted more (and I always want more)? It was a real nail biter, right smack in the middle of what should’ve been a calm, writerly day. (Ultimately, I yanked out the Keurig cord with a dramatic tug, then set the Mr. Coffee to brewing.)

The dangers of the job don’t end there. I recently told someone they had a cameo in a book I’m currently shopping around. I thought they’d be flattered. Boy, did I misjudge. They were all like “You can’t use my real name in there and then have me French kissing a camel!” For one terrified moment, I thought they might sue me. Then I decided they were probably kidding and were secretly flattered. I expect them to eventually admit as much, if they ever start speaking to me again.

Oh sure, you might think, you’ve had a minor inconvenience or two as a writer, but it’s not like you’re out there putting your life on the line. Guess what? I literally almost died yesterday!

It was a sunny, brisk morning, and I’d just opened a three thousand word short story I needed to edit. I had the coffee pot next to me, straw threaded through the little hole at the top of the carafe, and I’d used a special lint-free cloth to wipe the smudges off my glasses. All seemed well at my happy little workspace, when suddenly, it happened: the birds stopped singing, the squirrel out on the lawn dropped his nut and darted off into the woods, and I saw it. Right there, in the opening paragraph of “Of Giraffes and Men”: I’d used lay when I should’ve used lie.

A cloak of horror settled over my shoulders. My heart stopped beating for what felt like an hour, but was really probably more like a heartbeat’s time. Had I asked anyone to read through this story? Had anyone seen this egregious error? The room spun, my hands went numb, and I thought for sure this was the end. Death by typo. Oh, the shame!

With trembling fingers, I carefully hit BACKSPACE not once but twice, and, gasping for air, I tapped an i, then an e. I was dizzy and weak. Would I be able to hit SAVE before my heart gave out?

Good news: I survived to see another day. All I’m saying is, don’t judge another person’s profession until you’ve walked in their shoes. You have no idea how dangerous it is out there!

The horror!

]]><![CDATA[Hometown Girl]]>Fri, 06 Sep 2019 23:09:15 GMThttp://staceylongo.com/staceymusings/hometown-girlI was hatched in Glastonbury, Connecticut, some forty-odd years ago. Everyone says it’s a lovely town to raise kids in. I wouldn’t know, but I will say it wasn’t much fun being a kid there.

Glastonbury (population 34,584 as of 2016 data) is a nice place. Not as wealthy as, say, Cos Cob or Westport, but it’s no East Hartford, either. It has pretty buildings and a town green which hosts a popular art festival every summer. It’s home to a lot of doctors, lawyers, and when I was growing up, exactly one dairy farm. That’s where I lived.

Growing up amongst the cows was pretty fun. We had ponds with frogs, snakes, and snapping turtles, and a hay barn to play in. There were downsides, too: the manure lagoon would get pretty ripe after a heavy rain, and the kids on the bus would make fun of us because of the smell. (This was the least mortifying of my school bus ride experiences. One time, the cows got out and held up the bus at our stop; another, one of the barn cats dashed into the road right as the bus came, ricocheting off a wheel so that its furry little body shot-putted past the bus windows into the woods by our mailbox, leaving my sister and I to climb onto a bus full of our horrified, teary peers.) We got picked on a little bit, sure. But nobody turned down a playdate to our house.

When I was younger, I couldn’t wait to move out of town. As soon as I turned eighteen, I was off to school in Pennsylvania, though I did return every summer to work at the local pharmacy. After that, I started my adult life on Block Island, with a bunch of other transplants who’d moved from the mainland. “Where are you from?” I asked my first island friend, Ayesha.

“New Britain,” she said. “You?”

“I’m from Glastonbury.”

I was horrified by what I heard in my voice as I said it. Was that—yes, I think it was—pride? And maybe a little snobbery? “Glah-stin-berry,” I said again, slowly, and the condescension was almost embarrassing. (Almost.)

I told my mother about this strange turn of events that night on the phone. “I sounded like such a snot! I sounded like . . . well, like I was from Glastonbury!”

“Not so bad being from here, is it?” she said. Mom had a point.

I’ve learned to embrace my roots now that I’m older—the farm is long gone, but the town preserved it as open space, and you can still catch snapping turtles in the ponds there. I don’t get to Glastonbury as often these days, and sometimes I worry that my perception of growing up there was skewed. Maybe it was a nice town to be a kid in. Maybe I shouldn’t have been so eager to move away.

I’ll have to ask some of my high school friends what they think. They’re easy enough to find—half my class moved one town over from Glastonbury, just like me.

]]><![CDATA[Womanhood]]>Fri, 23 Aug 2019 21:01:23 GMThttp://staceylongo.com/staceymusings/womanhoodWomanhood. How do we learn how to be proper women? By learning from the female parental figures in our life, of course.

Except here’s the thing: when it comes to wearing makeup and proper eyebrow grooming, my mother is clueless. As, I suspect, was her mother before her, and maybe even Grandma’s mother before that. Not a one of us knows how to put on mascara without poking ourselves in the eye with the wand.

My sister worked as a receptionist for a hair salon back in her teen years. From the stylists there, she did learn the importance of clean makeup brushes and how to apply liquid eyeliner. However, that was a long time ago. When I told Kim I was thinking of taking our mother for makeup lessons for her birthday, she wanted to come too. “But you know how to wear makeup,” I said.

“I haven’t worn blush since my wedding,” she countered. “The last time I used a mascara wand, it was to comb a snarl out of Nathan’s hair when he was a baby.” Fair point. She was in.

It’s not like I think my mother suddenly needs to learn how to wear makeup now that she’s a septuagenarian. In fact, I respect her lifelong decision to choose sleeping later rather than getting up and putting on her face—so much so that I’ve followed in her footsteps all my life. It’s just that she recently had a rather comical driver’s license photo taken, and Mom was feeling blue. I thought the makeover would cheer her up.

“You have beautiful skin,” the makeup artist said as soon as Mom sat in the hot seat. I’m sure my mother was flattered, until the woman said it again, to both my sister and me. Repeatedly. This lady really liked our skin. “What’s your skincare regime?” she demanded to know. When all three of us reported sort of splashing our faces with water and maybe using a swipe of bar soap at the same time, she seemed nonplussed. “Fine. Don’t tell me,” the woman said sulkily. How could we explain that the secret to our skin was simply genetics? (Thanks again, Grandma!)

The makeup artist then proceeded to plaster four layers of coating on our faces to help us achieve a “natural” tone (moisturizer, tinted moisturizer, concealer, and magic powder). Then she explained how we’ve been doing everything wrong our entire lives.

“Light reveals, dark conceals,” she sang, painting my mother’s lids with vanilla cream eye shadow. For the record, my mother has avoided anything she even suspects might be vanilla pretty much her entire life. But the lady was right: Mom’s eyes lifted and popped. (Not literally out of her head. That would be gross.) We learned that women with blue eyes should wear black or brown eyeliner, or even plum, and brown-eyed girls should wear navy or gray. She explained how women with oily eyelids should wear cream shadows, and will not get crows’ feet, and ladies with dry lids should use powders to hide the age lines around our eyes. We saw how to properly apply lip liner, and discovered that glosses have to be reapplied as often as ChapStick, which, with Kim and I both being ChapStick addicts, is about every ten minutes. Most importantly, we learned about the miracle that is an eyebrow stick.

I think all three of us had eyebrow concerns. Kim’s always look fine, but probably there’s some maintenance going on for her to pull off that look, and I don't know how confident she was that she was doing it right. Mom has never plucked her brows, and now that she’s no longer twenty, maybe the hairs aren’t always all dark brown. Personally, I had my brows waxed ten years ago, and I’ve sort of just been tweezing along the same path as that decade-old indulgence. But I have scars in my brows, and if I sleep on my face, I wake up looking like a rapper who deliberately shaves lines in his eyebrow hair (Vanilla Ice, I salute you). The eyebrow stick—a pencil on one end, a brush on the other—addressed all our concerns.

“Just brush up, draw a light line following your arch, brush down, fill in the holes, and voila!” She spun each one of us toward the mirror. We each suddenly had movie-star-worthy eyebrows.

After spending a small fortune on makeup—you didn’t think these things came without a price, did you?—the three of us left with our fancy eyebrow sticks and other assorted goodies in our fancy Nordstrom bags. Given the cost of each item, we all vowed to use our new blushes, glosses, and liners every day. I was especially excited to try the magic eyebrow pencil my own self.

The next morning, my alarm went off for work. I’d set it ten minutes earlier so I could get up and work on my new “natural” makeup look. I glanced at the clock. Eyed the snooze button. Perfect eyebrows, or nine more minutes in bed?

You know what else is good for the skin? Plenty of sleep.

The Longo ladies: before and after.

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