Hot Literati gets Laser Hair Removal

hello party girls and boys

I trust that you are having a good April. We are going to go back to one summer day last year, before I ran away to Europe for two months with little notice. This is the story of the first time I got laser hair removal.

The Fall of the Giants, Salvator Rosa

I've had a small, personal fascination with laser hair removal ever since the second grade. I was in the "gifted and talented" program with a small group of children. We played and bickered and completed all of these themed lessons that helped us understand the "rules of life." I tried to read that Jordan Peterson book by the same title when an ex gave it to me five years ago. I do not personally endorse Jordan Peterson.

So i'm sitting on the colorful rug on the east side of the school. So many memories on that rug. Percy Jackson. The really sweet kid in my grade who alternated betwee his first and middle name every other year, celebrated his half-birthday with the class. The kid who was really good at math and always brought milk for lunch. We were the "gifted" kids. And we were all pretty strange, I think.

And my teacher sits in her rocking chair, giving us all of these lessons, reading aloud, all that jazz. But one day she tells us about a hair or a mole or something that she had removed from her face that day with a laser.

"It felt like a rubber band," she said.

It's funny what sort of things stick with you as a kid, you know? And ever since that moment, whenever I hear "laser removal" i think of that moment.

Last summer. I'm in midtown Manhattan. Controversially, I love midtown. I grew up there, in the apartment Miss Universe used to own when I was 17/18.

Laser Away is a small business right off of 57th. It's across from what used to be one of my favorite restaurants, Rue 57, and it's right by the Verizon where I bought my flip phone.

I get there in a long, paisely dress I've had since I was eighteen. I'm looking at it now. I used to wear it often, in college.

Anytime I go somewhere brand new to me, I feel like a puppy, looking around and taking it in. That's why I'm sort of a funny influencer, because I often forget to take videos. But the entryway is gorgeous and formal in a way you only get in midtown. And I go up up and into the office to realize that I'm fifteen minutes late. I put in in my calendar wrong. But the woman was nice and I tipped well and she had me strip, like I was at the doctor.

She took her laser gun out and asked what I wanted done and I boldly declared

"Everything."

I asked her if it hurt. She smiled and sort of shrugged, saying it depended on your pain tolerance. I was confidence. I have 16 tattoos. And she started on my lip and I swear, I've never felt like that before, I felt the laser on my teeth, like a Princess in a sci fi movie getting prepared for some ritual.

I laughed. She laughed. She repeated for each of my underarms.

And when she implied that we could keep going lower, I asked "what do you do?"

"I tell my husband he's just going to have to love me with hair."

We both laughed and I got dressed.

Then I went back down to the lobby with vaulted ceilings and out into midtown with those big buildings of billionaire row that crowd out the sky.

The fun part of growing up is that you get to do the things that adults used to tell you about.

If you go to Laser Away, tell them Hot Literati sent you.

xx

hailo