All henna'ed up with nowhere to go

In a manner of speaking, of course. I always have TAR on Tuesdays!

But I am henna'ed up. This arose from a happy hour a few weeks ago. I was hanging out with one of the girls from my bellydance performance class and one of her friends. There was bhangra blaring in the background and someone came up with the idea of hiring a henna artist to come paint our hands. I think the actual conversation was, "Wouldn't it be cool, if we, like, got someone to come to the house and, like, do our hands?" And you would have to slur it in order to capture it exactly.

Like many ideas at happy hour, it seemed like a no-lose proposition (one time, I got all worked up about taking an all-day class on how to operate a sewing machine), and like many of my brilliant ideas, I failed to follow through. However, my dance class friend did not. She emailed the rest of us, asking if we were serious. With someone (soberly) planning things, it seemed like it could work out. And it did.

We had about ten women at my apartment Friday night, sipping wine and poring over designs Sahar (the artist - www.laylashenna.com.) brought with her. She had cool designs from all over the Arab world. I almost got a Tuareg one (largely because I remembered that damn car commercial), but ended up with a traditional pattern that starts off on my index finger, snakes down to create a floral pattern on the back of my hand, and whirls up to my ring finger. It's quite purty and I find myself often distracted while typing.

I remember reading that the original reason behind henna-ing a bride's hands was that she wouldn't have to do housework for as long as the dye stayed on her. While I don't have that kind of incentive to make sure it lasts, I'm still taking care of the tattoo and keeping it properly moisturized so that I can be mesmerized by it for as long as possible.