……and then my eyebrows fell out. Of course they did. Bored with sitting above my eyes and constantly being upstaged by my ears, they took off and went on some sort of jolly jaunt across my cotton pillow case. It is okay. I have had tests. I am fine, other than the stress related alopecia. Thankfully the hair on my head has a firm grip on the situation and is showing no signs of leaving me as a balding shadow of myself. I am grateful. Hats are expensive. It’s a good job I know how to draw a line, or two.
Meanwhile, my blog stats are showing me that I have spambots. I do not want spambots. GO AWAY!!! I have enough to be stressy about. I will occasionally be setting my blog to private to try to shake them off, as Mr Devine did when he had a bad case of bots – it seemed to work for him.
So there you go. That is my news. Obviously I am very grumpy and not to be trifled with, not even chocolate trifled.
Thank you for your interest.
Sxxx
Wonky Words 
Cripes. Under such trying circumstances the last thing you need is a nasty case of the bots, I should think. Take care, Scarlet.
B.
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The bots are very itchy, Mr Batarde….. I need some sort of virtual pink ointment.
Sx
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Crikey, that’s disconcerting. Hair on head is good though. I’ve found, oddly, that hair on legs seems to have diminished vastly with age, which doesn’t matter at all and is actually rather convenient, but hair on head is doing just fine. I hope stress diminishes and that you can line everything up nicely again. I hope that you will be comforted and taken care of, not least by yourself.
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Agreed, Z!! The hair on my legs has also diminished! It’s saving me a fortune on razors.
Sx
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Oh, you poor thing! What you need is a relaxing weekend away…
As for spambots.I always thought they sounded like a nasty rash on the nether regions…but they are worse! High time the backroom boys sorted out an algorithm to deal with them.
I hope you find some new eyebrows or, failing that, start a trend in stick-ons or funky scripted brows.
(xx)
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I AM a poor thing, Dinah! I am feeling very sorry for myself. Maybe if I posted more often then the bots would leave me alone? They are like vultures circling a dying blog.
Sx
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Post!Post! We all love you.
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Really????!!! You want more of this grumpy stuff???!!!
Sx
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Oh my! I hope you had your thyroid levels checked with all those tests. Eyebrows (at least the outer half) tends to disappear with low thyroid levels. Hopefully your stress levels drop and your eyebrows come back. If not, you can get very creative with drawing on new ones. Change your look every day! Use your calligraphy pens! Try different colours! Fuschia and electric blue, perhaps? Do take care, Scarlet. xoxo
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I did indeed have my Thyroid levels checked, Ponita. All was well, and I was dismissed from the surgery – there is no call back for mental health issues. The Government and the NHS has been preaching how mental and physical health issues should be treated equally – seems that the message isn’t getting through!
Sx
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Things could be worse… Jx
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OMG!! Jon! You’re right! *scary* xoxo
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I promise that I won’t use a Sharpie marker pen when I draw on my eyebrows, Jon! I am favouring Clinique.
Sx
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Christ! I clicked! Now I shall have nightmares about hairybot eyebrows…
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I don’t think those brows are going to come off in the wash….
Sx
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Scarlet, darling girl! I hope the spambots get all rusty and shrivel away into dust! (or whatever happens in cyberville when demons dissolve) I’d say relax, but I know that only makes me more anxious when I hear that. Be well! xoxox
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I do have a problem relaxing, Savvy! I am like a ball of nervous energy. I picked up my calligraphy pens yesterday…. so long as I don’t focus on perfection they calm me down.
Sx
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Maybe one of these will help!
Take care Miss Scarlet.
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Thank you, Mr Lax! Maybe I could do something similar with glitter… or perhaps Mistress MJ could knit me something suitable?
Sx
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Oh, Ms Scarlet! What a to do! As Z said, it must be very disconcerting. Perhaps a few extra cuddles with Sidney will alleviate some of your stress? If not, having no eyebrows didn’t seem to hinder Whoopi Goldberg too much – perhaps she has a support group for such occurrences?
As for the spambots, I’m sorry to report that my frogbot was not in the least deterred when I privatised my blog. It would latch on instantly as soon as I stepped back into the public eye, a bit like a bad case of paparazzi. I also tried reverting the affected posts to draft (Mr Lax’s suggestion) and then republishing them a few days later, but that didn’t work either. In the end, I just let the dratted thing get on with it, and, after just over a year (July 2016 to September 2017), it finally went away (or got trapped in one of my posts never to be seen again).
P.S. Can I have the chocolate trifle then, please?
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The bots are so annoying, Mr Devine! The privatisation seemed to have deterred one of them – the one that I believe was scraping off content for other blogs – but the other one is still there, though not as insistent.
Whoopi can probably rock any kind of look! I actually have a new hairstyle so that my fringe is longer and completely covers my left brow. My right brow isn’t as bad and looks okay when I colour it in, so my fringe is shorter on that side. It looks quite trendy.
Sx
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P.S I am getting chocolate cake today 🙂
Sx
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Wot, your eyebrows fell out? Not too awful, I suppose – you can always draw some on. Losing your hair would be a much more serious development. Baldness may be okay for males, but nevertheless I would HATE to be bald or even balding.
In 11 years of blogging haven’t yet been visited by spambots. Hopefully I never will. I get the odd Viagra-based comment but that’s about it.
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It is true, Nick, it is not too awful, and it could be worse, I’m pleased that the hair on my head has stayed put…. for the time being. And my eyelashes are still lush. A bit of clever styling, and drawing, and nobody would know that I’m a stress bunny.
You probably have had the bots – they don’t necessarily leave spam comments, but they scrape your content and slap it up on other blogs. It’s really annoying and they take no notice of copyright law.
Sx
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Your eyebrows fell off?? Really?? Geez so pleased it wasn’t your head hair. Try and keep that stress under control, which sounds ridiculous coming from me, the worlds most stressy person you’ll ever meet.
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Indeed they have, Joey! To be fair the right eyebrow is still in evidence, but all that’s left of the left is a little tuft. Appalling.
I wish I could stop the stress, sadly a habit of a lifetime.
Sx
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Sorry about your eyebrows – I don’t know how I’d keep the rain out of my eyes if mine disappeared. Also sorry you’re stressed – sending big love your way xxx
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Lulu – eyebrows are there for a reason aren’t they?!!
Thank you!
Sx
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It is a worry but you can always have them tattooed on if it bothers you, ask for one eyebrow higher than the other for that attentive look.
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Mitzi – Imagine, in the olden days [1970’s] I would have ended up with green eyebrows if I’d gone down the tattooing route! I have a long fringe and my Roger Moore impersonations are on hold. It’ll be fine!
Sx
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You need to kick those bots in the patooty, and sending you a virtual hug, I hope that helps Scarlet x
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Thank you, Ms Tales! The bots are still lurking. I’m sure they’ll get bored eventually. I hope.
Sx
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Up to your eyebrows in spambots? (I should think of the next line of this start of a brilliant web ad. I might come back if something good comes to mind)
I had not heard of this stress related problem. I do know stress can take people down.
Scraping my posting content? I’m not sure I would ever discover it. Did you actually find it post somewhere else?
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Bill – The bots like to steal my photographs – not so much my inane ramblings! I’ve seen them come up on a Google image search on blogs that have nothing to do with me. Very annoying.
I can’t think of a second line for your ad either… I’ll come back if I do 🙂
Sx
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Sorry to hear you’re so stressed your eyebrows ran off, I know it’s unlikely, but if there’s anything I can do to help you destress do let me know. Meanwhile, perhaps you can pretend you’re playing Tilda Swinton as a youth in an avant-garde play until your brows return.
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Ha Ha!! Thank you, Eryl!! And Tilda Swinton got to lay down for hours in a box – that’s probably what I need to do!!
Sx
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I was going to make a lot of snarky jokes until I Googled alopecia. Turns out this is not the time or place for joking! Sometimes I catch myself in time and sometimes I just go ahead an open my mouth and let the dumbness just fall all over the floor. That was a close one.
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No worries, Monsieur Pain!It is a strange affliction…. hopefully it won’t spread to my head 🙂
Sx
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Of course you are the most atractive MsScarlet who ever graced this planet, eyebrow or not !
And I see Mitzi beat me already to the permanent tatoo suggestion.
Of course it is a warning, nervous tics, tinnitus or even hear loss may also be possible – strictly reducing the stress level is necessary – what is of course much easier said than done. What ever helps is good – touching pens, chocolate cake, cuddling Sidney, yelling over fields, jumping into muddy puddles – let it all flow out darling, brake free from convention’s rusty boundaries, or so …:)
I assume meditating is not an option for a nervous ball of energy ? *sigh*
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Apologies for my tardy reply, Mr Mags!!
I already have tinnitus – hissing in my ears. Horrible.
Cake has helped…. as have pens to a lesser degree!
Sx
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SOrry, I can say nothing about them spambotniks, may they rott in hell. Is wordpress of any help in this respect ?
You mentioned that your pictures were stolen and show up somewhere else – do you think “watermarks” would help ? Sorry, it just came to my mind, not earlier.
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Mr Mags – I may try the watermark approach. Probably take me a couple of years to design one though 🙂
Sx
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You had me at the first line.. that would make quite a children’s book. I can just imagine the illustration of these furry eyebrows scampering off ones face and on to adventures untold.
http://www.henatayeb.blogspot.com
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Thank you so much, henatayeb!! I hope my eyebrows are having fun somewhere!
Sx
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Sorry about the stress. I hope you have some good music to listen to let all that stress out. Don’t worry about being bald. With or without hair, you are resplendent. Bald is beautiful. And you can always go to the next SciFi Convention as Ilia from Star Trek: The Motion Picture.
I hope you take the opportunity to get creative and have fun drawing out gorgeous eyebrows. Why not calligraphy on your eyebrows? A word or message? Why not use color?
Or I hope you do something that makes you happy. Take care!
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Thank you for all your suggestions, Mr Swings!!! I may as well make something interesting out of the situation!! After I’ve had a boogie about.
Sx
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If you don’t do anything sweaty you won’t need eyebrows. No zumba for you!
no trifle? not even a teeny bit?
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Kylie – well, I do walk a lot, but as a rule I don’t sweat, I only glow!
Okay, a little trifle then…. and maybe a cupcake 🙂
Sx
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So glad to have found you again, even if you are minus eyebrows at the moment. You may not know me in my Meraki Studio Alcala guise, but I am Annie who was Moving On and then Being Here in the south of Spain and I used to love your writing and your old blog. I have found that having a smart phone and contact through Facebook and Instagram and the like has almost put paid to my blogging life… I miss it in so many ways!
Such a lot has happened and I am now an artist, darling, sort of, with my own studio and a great new set of daily challenges and fun. I LOVE your calligraphy – gives me goosebumps just to look at it…do you have any videos of you actually writing? That’s not meant to sound like a dirty old man grooming a teenager on Instagram, by the way…
You simply can’t rely on eyebrows…first sign of a problem and they’re off. I suppose they might come back one day but better to put them out of your life if that’s their attitude.
Kisses
Axxx
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Hello Annie!!! Zentangle and yoga queen!!!! Lovely to see you again…. but your blog is all in Spanish!! I’d love to read about the challenges.
My blogging is sparse… like my eyebrows!
Sxxx
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Are things better? If not, try .
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… this.
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Ha Ha!!! I shall print it out and add it to my face, what harm can it do?
Sx
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Robert Mueller might be finishing up soon (???) and might be available for you spambot investigation. Also no matter how much you criticize him or his work, he will keep digging and working. A very persistent guy.
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I have missed you and I’m grossly behind in blogging and reading blogs since being back. But what in hell are spambots?!?!?!?! Are they like Codfanglers?
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