Dear Kid,

Have you ever had your eye start twitching for no apparent reason? Mine started twitching yesterday. Right in the middle of a meeting.

I quickly put my hand up to hold down the twitch—I didn’t want people to think I was winking at them.

“What are you doing?” someone asked. Apparently I wasn’t quite as subtle as I thought. On the plus side, I managed to turn the conversation from budgets to eye twitching. And I learned that while I thought I was doing a full-scale eyelid wave, no one had noticed what were actually teeny baby itsy bitsy micro-twitches.

According to My Friend the Internet there are a number of reasons your eye might start twitching. I investigated each.

Eyestrain. That seems entirely reasonable. Strain your eyes, and your overworked muscle twitches. It happens with biceps why not eyeballs. On the other hand, I wasn’t lifting eye-weights or staring at microscopic print. Probably not eyestrain.

Fatigue. Let’s see. Tired eye, tries to close, turns out doing rapid blinky thing? Reasonable, but I’m not any more tired than usual.

Caffeine. Too much caffeine can make your eyes twitch. What does that mean “too much caffeine”? Too busy laughing to take this one seriously.

Dry eyes. Why on earth would my eyelid enjoy scraping against my arid eye so much it would go to afterburners? No question that my eyes are dry. But again, no more than usual.

Allergies. Which can make your eyes dry or watery (a confusing conundrum). My allergy meds probably rule this out.

Pinkeye. Pretty sure I would have noticed the other pinkeye symptoms.

Stress. Duh. But no more than usual.

Because. Just because. That must be it. At least, it’s the answer I like best.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

Makeup can be hard to understand.

I don’t know if you noticed, but I didn’t wear any makeup over the Thanksgiving break. I didn’t even bring any makeup with me on our trip. I figured the family has seen me without “assistance” before, and it would be a good break. Also, I really needed the extra 6 hours of sleep.

I bet you thought the makeup would have rested nicely while we were gone and just start up as if nothing had happened.

You’d be wrong.

Disastrously wrong.

My foundations started things off with the foundation of the protest. It glopped. It smudged. It refused to smooth itself out, instead keeping all its particles grouped together for warmth and safety.

My eyeliner scampered about like a hungry cocker spaniel puppy. To be fair, it’s a newish eyeliner (very pretty color called Topaz), but we’d had the scampering under control before Bird Day. And like a new puppy, it pooped on my eyelid. Small break for cleanup.

My eyeshadow pranced around like the Lipizzaner stallions (you don’t know about them? Remind me), marching in unison but showing off unexpected moves here and there.

And then there was mascara.

In general, if something bad is going to happen with makeup, you can bet that it’s either blush or mascara. Or both. (You get one guess.)

Not only does black mascara look bad when it smears all over the place, it has the effect of dumping arsenic into water. Which is to say “scorched earth.” You just have to suck it up (swear a bit) and start the whole darn makeup thing over.

And then try to figure out how to explain to your colleagues why you’re late for work.

Love, Mom

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Dear Kid,

An eyelash has taken up residence in my eye.

This is not good.

It’s not that I don’t like eyelashes. Some of my best ocular accessories are eyelashes. It’s just that I prefer them in their normal location doused with tons of mascara.

Floating around my eyeball is not the prefered (or even acceptable) location for any foreign debris, eyelashes included.

It is truly amazing how something so small and seemingly insignificant can cause such crazy annoyance discomfort pain.

Pebbles in shoes are the same sort of thing. Little tiny object, big huge problem.

The difference is that taking a pebble out of a shoe is generally a relatively straightforward process. Trying to dig out an eyelash generally requires 6 people, 2 mirrors, a bright light, and a lot of frustration. It’s surgery without the equipment or skills.

Eyelashes are stubborn things. I’m convinced that when they fall into your eye they excrete a glue-like substance that keeps them attached to the cornea. Or that guides them into a corner of your eye from which they absolutely, positively cannot be extracted.

Which is frustrating.

And annoying uncomfortable painful.

I’m going to go find some mirrors and bright light.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

When you see commercials on TV, mascara glides on smoothly, coating each lash with an even layer of makeup giving the model huge, gorgeous lash-fringed eyes.

That’s exactly how it works—with 6 makeup artists, professional lighting, and 642 takes. Most of us don’t have 3 or 4 days to enhance our faces. We have 32 seconds between brushing teeth and dragging a brush through unruly hair.

Most days, mascara goes on reasonably smoothly. Every now and then, however, there is a  morning where I just have to face the reality that Mascara Has a Mind of Its Own.

On mornings like that there is no hope. And today was one of those days. Mascara flew off the wand landing in a sticky mess somewhere in the vicinity of my eyes. Note: the raccoon look is bad on teenage girls. It is downright ridiculous on someone my age.

Small animals scurried to get out of newly created tar pit on my face before they got stuck forever.

Makeup tip: This is generally a good time to buy new mascara. Or to wish you’d bought new mascara the day before.

But it’s been that kind of a week.

A few days ago my purse committed suicide in the Walgreen’s parking lot. That was a lot of fun. So I pulled a really cute funky handbag out of the closet and I’ve been using that for the last couple of days. Today—did I mention it’s been ridiculously cold?—my purse froze and the then the handles broke.

Yesterday, I was attacked by my computer cord. It viciously tangled itself around my feet, tripping me. So naturally, I stepped in the ceramic wastebasket, which clamped its jaws around my ankle and down I went.

Then today the Great Mascara Catastrophe of 2014.

This year is just over a week old, and we have a lot of room for improvement.

Love, Mom