Important Information About Hair Loss

I wrote a bunch of stuff about shopping and my new coffeemaker and some other things I got from Amazon, but I decided that no one really cares about all that when we could be talking about body hair instead. Am I right?

Here is part, probably the most important part, of my recent Amazon order:

It was cheaper on Amazon than at Wal Mart, even with shipping.

[via]

There is a good reason that I'm sharing my Nair purchase with you. I decided to try it after visiting my mother a few weeks ago. She recently started using it after nearly bleeding half to death from a razor nick in the shower. I don't want to be too gross or anything but old people get varicose veins and if you try to shave over them... Well, you get the idea.

I don't have varicose veins but I'm not opposed to trying new products that might make my grooming routine easier. Not that it's a huge chore but still...

Actually, I tried Nair back its 'short shorts' days. All it did then was give me a rash. My legs were still hairy but hairy with a rash which didn't do a whole lot for my self esteem.

Imagine being 13 with braces, a head gear and brand new seeping pustules all over the skinny pasty white legs you inherited from your Lithuanian father that are also covered with the thick black hair you got from your Lebanese mother.

Enjoy this short retro commercial while I go take an Ativan.


Anyway, in the shower this morning as I was totally not reliving the nightmare that was my youth, I was thinking about some of the precious few advantages to aging. Varicose veins are not one of them but fortunately I don't have those to complain about yet.

One aging side effect that I am glad to have is hair loss. As I mentioned before, my mother is Lebanese. It would have been nice to inherit her dark olive skin but instead all I got was her ability to grow little afros on various parts of my body.

As I've gotten older I've noticed that some of my follicles are not producing with the rapaciousness they once did. Yeah, my friend Roget helped me out with that one. The hair on my head seems just as thick as ever and to be honest I wouldn't mind just a little thinning up there. But I am experiencing noticeable thinning in the hair on my legs. In fact, it pretty much doesn't even grow on my thighs anymore.

The phenomenon is bittersweet, however, since smooth silky thighs aren't much of a benefit to me at this point in my life. They could have served me well 20 years ago but nnnoooo. At that time I was busy nursing rash after rash caused by the depilatory experiments I performed in an attempt to corral my bikini line, which extended from my actual bikini line to my kneecaps...where it then turned into bangs.

Ativan break.

Back to my shower thoughts this morning. As I was considering what a blessing and a waste it is to have smooth thighs that rarely see the light of day, I remembered a dinner conversation from about 20 years ago. I hope I don't offend anyone by sharing this. It's actually a funny and fond memory for me even though it was a little...um...shocking.

Jayson and I hadn't been married very long, I don't even remember if Taylor existed yet. We were having dinner at his parents' house in Florida along with a couple of his aunts, uncles and his grandmother, Grandma Flo. I think her husband, Grandpa Russell, had already passed away by this time because I don't remember him there.

I'm not sure how the conversation started but somehow the subject of body hair came up. This is one time that I'm pretty sure I didn't instigate the inappropriate topic since Jayson and I hadn't been married long and I didn't really know his family very well. So I'm pretty sure it wasn't me. I think.

The women started talking about aging and about how they didn't have to shave their legs as often since the hair sort of falls out when you get older. I had a similar conversation with another grandmother years before this so I was aware that it happened. I was much younger than the other ladies but I knew stuff, I could still participate.

Then someone, I can't remember exactly who, made the comment, "Yeah, and that's not the only place it falls out." The comment wasn't followed by a wink or a nudge but it didn't have to be. They all knew what she was saying and I did too even though this was the first time I'd heard it. I knew about the legs and the thinning hair on your head but this...no one told me about this.

I looked over at Grandma Flo who I guess was in her 70s at the time and she was nodding with that wise and knowing look that grandmothers often have on their faces. I set down my fork and concentrated on not forming any mental pictures to go along with the frightening turn our conversation had taken.

Then, to my horror, Grandma Flo said, "No one ever told me that could happen when you get older. When I first noticed it disappearing "down there" I just thought it was because Russell was rubbing it too much."

I never saw it coming. I think I spewed tea out of my nose and wet my pants. She wasn't *my* grandmother but she was *a* grandmother and you just rarely expect them to be that...candid. I decided then and there that I liked Grandma Flo. Even though I didn't know her well I was very fond of her and this hilariously bizarre dinner conversation is one of the reasons why.

Grandma Flo passed away a few years ago and I hope this doesn't seem disrespectful toward her because I certainly don't mean for it to be. She was a neat lady, I liked her.

There was another equally bizarre conversation at dinner that night but I can't share that one yet. The parties involved are still alive. See? I do sometimes have a filter. I'm sensitive to other people's feelings and respectful of their privacy. I only tell embarrassing stories about people after they've passed on. Or if I'm certain they don't know how to use the internet.