The White Side of My Greek "Hair-itage" (By Jessica)

So here I am, new to this whole blogging world. I am half Greek, as well as my three siblings and I have a few tales to tell on this subject. I will start by mentioning how my sister has always had a sad sob story about being dark skinned and Greek amongst the melanin deprived girls that didn't have to shave until they were 20. So I got to thinking! What about the white Greeks? I am Greek just like the rest of my family. I too have battled with the ethnic body hair crisis, only my battle is a unique one. I do not have the dark Greek olive skin to somewhat disguise my hair if I decide to be lazy and not shave. I have very light skin (we'll call it eggshell instead of pasty or pale). Ah yes, eggshell colored skin and DARK "features". While some have complimented my unique combination saying I look exotic or snow-white like (thanks), much too often there has been torment at my expense.

I can recall minding my own business at school trying to complete an assignment when one of my schoolmates began to pet my arms. "It's so soft!" she remarked, as if she was completely shocked that it wasn't coarse and wiry since it was so dark. Well, it didn't stop there, the rest of the class had to join in and I became the class pet. Needless to say nobody wanted to be my boyfriend that year. Well, except for one chubby buck-toothed kid that we so affectionately called "Bucky".

You tend to feel a little out of place as a Greek-American girl amongst all the other hairless kind. Especially when you discover that the other eight year old girls do not shave their legs. However, I could always find comfort from my family when I got home. My siblings loved to "help" me with my hair crisis. One night I was running around the house, carefree, when my older, darker, and hairier sister told me she had a lotion she wanted to try on me. Now, keep in mind this was the pre-shaving era of my life, so I was like six. My white toothpick-like legs with a hearty blanket of Grecian hair that made my skin look not so white, can't you picture it? Well, being the naive six year old that I was I agreed to let her use me as her guinea pig, after all, it was only lotion! And she was being nice to me, this was turning out to be a fun night! She opened the bottle and immediately the stench almost made me run, but she convinced me to stay. The tingling on my skin concerned me, but I was told that it wasn't a problem. I did find it a little odd that it was put on so thick and she wouldn't let me rub it in. But I didn't object because I was getting treated so nicely! So I watched some t.v. for a while, not realizing that my brothers were now spectators of this event of the lotion. I looked down at my leg to notice that the hair was beginning to curl and look very odd. I was concerned so my sister finally informed me that it was just my hair dying.......DYING??!! Um, WHAT????!!!!! I had hair on my body that was dying if not already dead?! Dead things all over my leg! Death; scary, creepy, hairy death on my leg?! That's when the hysteria set it. It wasn't all bad though, I had a nice smooth hairless spot on my leg for about 5 weeks.

I don't get tormented so much for my hair anymore, the razor is my best friend. While I left my trademark arm hair in tact for many years I decided on a whim to see what my arms looked like without hair. White.

Tune in next time for more on the white subject, coming soon.

Once Creepy, Now An Old Hat

Once Creepy, Now an Old HatTwelve thirty five in the morning. It is dark. Its quiet. You lay motionless, sleeping comfortably under the blankets in your warm bed. Your spouse is next to you, gently breathing in and out. Your mind is off in an interesting dream, possibly  perusing a fish market in the nude. Whatever your dreams are, your body is resting peacefully as you slumber. In the back of your mind, you are faintly aware of the squeaking hinges of your bedroom door, but its not enough to make you snap out of your sleepy dream. No, lots of fish markets have squeeky door hinges. So you continue to breath in and out, and get those precious moments of sleep you so desperately need.
Now the depth of your slumber is challenged, because now you are conscience of someone's breath on your face. Do you smell peanut butter? Now your cheek tickles as the intruder's hair brushes against you. Your dream begins fading away, and your mind places you back into the present moment. You hope it was all part of your dream, that their was simply someone with peanut butter breath breathing on your face at the fish market. But now the sound of the intruder whispering your name and asking if he/she can sleep with you tonight banishes any idea of this being a part of your dream sequence. You would probably agree that before you became a parent, this would have been a highly disturbing event. But now, its an old hat. It is not uncommon for your child to sneak into your room at night, making a sly entrance with only the squeeking door hinges to sound any alarm in your mind. It seems the child then waits for you to return to deeper level of unconscienceness so they can really make their signature surprise attack. They lean in really close to your face, as if they are about to speak into a failing microphone, then they say in the most creepy whisper, "Mommy... Can I sleep with you?" Before you can even answer, you feel your covers being lifted off your body, letting all the cold air chill your scantily clad body. Then you feel a tiny but amazingly sharp toenail scrape the flesh of your thigh. As you fight to get the covers back on you, you now have to struggle to find a position to sleep in that will; a)not disturb your sleeping husband, and b)allow you to rest with a tiny person's bottom in your face, their feet in your crotch, and; c)not set off someone's singing teddy bear. Now the situation is all mind over matter. You squeeze your eyes shut, take a deep breath and give your best shot to get some sleep before your day actually starts. You actually begin mentally chanting to yourself, as if your hyping yourself up to relax.
"Sleep. Sleep. Sleep. Sleep." Okay, thats not working. Great. Now you have Queen's "We Will Rock You" stuck in your head. Thats fine, you can handle that. Work with it. "I will, I will, sleep, too. I will, I will, SLEEP, TOO! Queen. They were good. What was the lead singer's name? Freddy Mercury? Yeah, thats it. Mercury. Oh, I should make tuna sandwiches for lunch. Do we have bread? I think I forgot to by bread... I wish I had a bread machine. Bread machine. Washing machine. I FORGOT TO SWAP LAUNDRY! Great, now no one will have clean clothes! Who cares? We are all going to die of mercury poisoning, anyway! Wow. I am sleep deprived. Oh, right. Sleep. Sleep. Sleep." So, you see, what once would give you chills; the idea of someone entering your room in the middle of the night; now is just another night of broken sleep. Whats worse, is that after years of disturbed sleep, your mind and body are now trained to wake up even under the most relaxed, peaceful circumstances. You wake up in the wee hours of the morning. "Why aren't the kids in here? What time... three o'clock?! Wow! Wait, did I give them tylenol before they went to bed? What if I accidently gave 'em too much? What if they aren't sleeping, but are IN FACT, dead?? Did I swap laundry?"
After a while, you get yourself relaxed, "The kids are fine. Enjoy that you are sleeping without them," you tell yourself. "Two more hours of sleep. Just drift off...."
"Mommy, can I sleep with you?"

Mysteries of My Mother (by Rachel)

Mysteries of My Mother; Solved

While I was growing up, I thought my mom was great. Don't get me wrong, I still think my mother is a wonderful person. But the qualities I was amazed by as a child are not exactly the same qualities I find all that impressive today. For example, my mother could drive a car while drinking a Diet Pepsi, changing the radio station and shift into second gear at 5,000 RPMs all the while yelling at my brother and I to "quit looking at each other." She was magical. Other than finding my mother to be amazing, I also thought she was extremely mysterious. My mom did a number of things that I found absolutely puzzling. Let me start with grocery shopping. First let me explain something about my mom. She was usually very mild tempered, and generally in a fine mood. It seemed that she would have an occasional bad day, full of terrifying looks directed at my brother and I, and lots of snappy words and hissing. For some reason beyond my comprehension, these were the days that she chose to go grocery shopping! Now, why would she choose a day of such an unpleasant mood to go out into the public with my brother and I to get food for the family? Mind boggling. Now, after years of intrigue, I have solved this mystery. One day, while I was dragging my screaming two-year old across the filthy floor of our local grocery store, and pushing a cart full of both food I had selected, and food that my sneaky daughter had hid somewhere in the pile of melting dairy products and bags of crushed dry noodles, it dawned on me. My mother didn't choose to go grocery shopping on the days that she happened to be breathing fire! She was breathing fire BECAUSE she was grocery shopping with two kids!! AH-HAH! This point was made undeniable clear to me when I caught a glimpse of myself in the reflection of the freezer section's glass doors. All evidence of that morning's showering, grooming and deoderizing were gone. I could see my unkempt hair, melting makeup, clothes suddenly damp with flopsweat. I struggled to balance my broken-strapped purse between my hip and the maverick-wheeled shopping cart, my daughter clinging to two of my sweaty, fatigued fingers while she continued to cry uncontrollable about not getting a toy filled with lead out of the machines at the front of the store.
I thought back to that morning, before we left the house. I was content, getting Em's hair into cute blonde pigtails, and then happily loading my new purse with extra wipes and some crackers. NOW. My eyes were fire engine red; and everything on my person was an easy 1500 degrees. Suddenly my hair was too much to bare, and because I didn't have a hair clip or anything, I carefully pulled all my hair into a bun shape. Then I strategically placed the adhesive side of a new maxi pad into place, suspending my hair into a makeshift bun. People were already looking at us, okay? I realized right then; I was my mother. Breathing fire, throwing canned good from one aisle into the other where the God forsaken cart sat, simply in the interest of saving time. Grabbing whiney children by the arm until you could hear the flesh bruising, only to realize that they were not in fact your children. Once Em and I got back to the car (both of us alive; surprise!!) I shoved our broken bags of pathetic groceries, which I now question that we ever needed them in the first place, into the car. Em quickly got herself buckled, and I think I heard her tell her teddy bear that she was glad to see him again, and that she never wanted to go to the "dark scary food place again." I got out my cracker crumb-covered cell phone, and called my mom.
"Hello?" she answered.
"Grocery. Shopping." I hissed.
"Oh," she said knowingly. After a moment of silence, I think I heard her smile with morbid intrigue, "How did it go."
"Well," I looked at Em in the backseat, who looked at me like I was a seven headed dragon.
"Em's still alive. I'm pretty sure I threw a frozen chicken at a cashier, and I have a femine hygiene product in my hair."
Only evil cackling from the other end of the line.
So, I now see that like my mother, I, too have faults. I have mysteries that my daughter may not solve until she becomes a mother herself. I can only hope that she can survive my fire breath and face-melting looks of rage as we manuever through the aisles of a supermarket. I look foward to the day that she calls me to describe the pain of shopping with a toddler, so I can let out an evil cackle. An evil cackle that says, "Vengance is mine," and "I feel for you." But, mostly says, "I'm glad its not me!"