Made Up

I sat next to a woman today on the subway who spent the entire half-hour applying her make-up. Come on! How much powder can one person apply in one sitting? I was too close to her to actually see what the finished product looked like. Or rather, near-finished, as mascara application had just begun as I was getting off the train. Then, on one of my many celebrity gossip sites, I saw a photo of Heidi Klum sans make-up and she looked gorgeous. So young and pretty. Not a stitch of rouge. Just her, in all her glory. I appreciated that.

Now, in no way, shape or form do I compare myself to Heidi Klum, but I don't wear make-up. Once in a while, if I am attending a special event, I will "do my eyes", but on a daily basis lipstick is as much as I apply, if even that. I know plenty of women who do wear make-up (I know I am definitely in the minority) and I have no issue with them. But I do find it odd that men are as they are, and we love them regardless. We're lucky if men apply moisturizer. And if they do, it's definitely because a woman bought it for them. Why can they just show up, as is, and be accepted, but woman feel they must look younger, fresher, tanner, wider-eyed, puffier-lipped than they actually are in order to leave their homes? It's such a double standard.

I don't not wear make-up to prove this point. I just don't like how it feels on my face. Plus I itch my eyes too much so I'd be a raccoon before lunchtime. It's also not ME. If I were to wear make-up, it would be punk style. Kohl-lined eyes, red lips. That's more my style. Artistic. But it's too late to start that. Right now, I like to think that I have that whole fresh-faced California-esque pseudo-hippie (in high heels!), free-spirited thing going on. I like it when my hair curls in it's natural state and I feel FREEEEE. But I am probably really looked at as a girl who doesn't try hard enough. Who is lazy or indifferent. My manicure chips too quickly. My highlights need updating. My wardrobe is out of date. So maybe it is true. I don't keep on top of those things the way maybe I should. But I just want it to be okay to be a natural girl, living in a sometimes unnatural world.

Distract Me

Talking to a friend of mine made me realize something: If I do not have something exciting and new to focus on, I will go crazy. I do not do well with spending too much time in front of the television. If I don't have a trip planned, I feel like a loser. If I don't work out, I feel fat. If I don't clean our apartment, I feel like a slob. If I don't have any projects going on, I feel uncreative. I need distractions. Things to keep me busy. Things to focus on. I need distractions ALL THE TIME!

I'm at the point in my life where babies are not too far down the line, should all go well. The thought of being pregnant is kind of soothing. It's okay to get chubby. It's okay to be tired. It's okay to not want to go anywhere. I would be able to eat, relax, sleep, chill without any of the usual guilt. Pregnancy would be a distraction from the usual distractions in my life. I could focus on baby names and the nursery. I could read books on parenting. I could hibernate and nobody would judge me for it, mostly myself.

Now, what worries me is what will happen after I do have a baby. I know the kid will keep me busy, but won't I get sick of that kind of busy-ness quickly, feeling like I'm in a rut, that every day is the same old shit? It won't be as easy to go for a run, or spend hours at the paper store, or on my computer. Planning a trip will entail either making it baby-friendly (OH, GOD, NOOOOO!!!!) or finding a babysitter to watch the child while my baby daddy and I are sipping pinas by the pool for a week. After a baby arrives, how easy will it be then to find a distraction from my regular life? Will I be able to survive without my distractions, or will life mold itself into something different, where the things I love, my distractions, are no longer that important? That would make me sad. For my distractions, the things I do to keep busy, to stay happy, to get through the grind, are what make me who I am.

Pass Me My Walker, So I Can Get the F Out of Here!

Tonight was my company holiday party. If you read back on last year's post regarding the same subject, you'll see that this was a definite step up (think crusty cheese in the office reception area and no alcohol). Yes, it's the end of January and the holidays are long forgotten, but regardless. It was at very nice city venue, which has great views and really good food to boot. The service was top-notch. Coat checks, people picking up empty glasses before they could hit the table. No lines at the buffets or bars. We were offered a bus ride to the event, and carpooling in nice car service vehicles to get home. Who could ask for more?

The problem? I miss the old days. I miss my old friends - the ones who have up and left and moved away to Texas and beyond. My partners in crime. The girls I would drink with, dance with, talk about people with. We would scope out the cute boys, even though we were in relationships. We would laugh as so-and-so dirty danced with the mailroom guy. Those were the nights that flew by, complete with a hangover so severe, even an egg and cheese on a roll the next morning couldn't fix it. But knowing everyone else was in the same boat as we were along with the memory of the evening made it all worthwhile.

Tonight, I wandered around, looking at all the people I did not know. Partly because of the merger, partly because my old friends have not stuck around for 9 years like I have. I felt old. I felt like a loser. My feet hurt. I didn't want to get too drunk because I have to go to motor vehicle really early tomorrow morning. Like I said, OLD! When once, all I wanted to do was stay out, tonight all I wanted was to go home.

It's MINE!

Currently, my department is going through some restructuring which includes reorganization of people and their workspaces. I was informed yesterday that I would move 4 cubes away from where I now sit. Not a big deal, I guess, even though I do like and have become attached to my private corner. Now I will be next to somebody whom I don't quite "get"... one of those people who asks a question with a huge smile on their face as they silently wait for you to fill the awkward silence they have created. Whatever. Then, I was informed that in this new space when I leave for the evening (because after all I am privileged to have the 9-5 shift) that I would have to share my space with one of the nightstaff.

Call me petty, but I have been here for almost 9 years and the one thing that I have always had was a space of my own. I don't want somebody's crumbs littering my desk or thier grubby hands on my keyboard and phone. I don't want them farting in my seat. I don't want to decorate my cube leaving room for him to put up a photo of his (fill in the blank... after all, I don't even know the guy!) I felt like something was being taken away from me. Like I was being punished for working the shift I have been assigned. But I also felt like nobody else in a higher up position would want to share THEIR cube so because of that, I didn't feel like I was being completely immature. Turns out, I spoke up and now I am fine and will have my own place again. Was this a battle I should have chosen? I think so!

When I Grow Up

Read Does Debbie's blog to see what this posting is all about:

1. A writer. OK, I know it's not original. But I was an English major in college, I have been an avid reader since I learned how to string together my ABCs, I have never struggled to write a term paper and I have kept a journal since I was little. I have written poems, one of which my teacher said was publishable (but something I didn't
pursue because I am an underachiever and have fear of success/failure), I have written songs (well, just one and it wasn't very good), I have written short stories. I'm a word geek... I love crossword puzzles, Scrabble and word games. Words could be my life.

2. A dentist. I am obsessed with teeth. Never happy with my own, I would love to be a dentist, helping people to have the smile they've always longed for. I'd be so gentle that even people as fearful as I am of the dentist would be okay in my chair, and recommend their friends. I see it as an art-form, one I would approach with sensitivity and also creativity. I would be the type of dentist that I want for myself. One I have yet to find (I am open to recommendations of a great, gentle dentist in the NYC area, if anyone knows of one!)

3. A traveler. Someone who visits places all over the world, for money. Who writes articles, takes photos, sells tips to guide books. I would love to be able to see the world for work. Like The Amazing Race, only with a salary. That would be the best. I love to travel, and though it seems unachievable, one of my goals in life is to see it all... the entire world. Space travel doesn't interest me... Earth travel is where it's at, for me. But it would have to have a bit of luxury. I don't want to be camping out in the Amazon rainforest, by any stretch of the imagination, or atop Mt. Everest. I just want to find a way to make a living while partying at Carnivale or trekking through a medieval Italian village, searching out the finest and cheapest red wine.

4. A gardener or landscaper. Something that would keep me outside all day, no matter the season. Planting things. Working with dirt. I am a nature girl by heart, born and raised and schooled in the country. I love feeling connected to the earth and again, it is a creative way of making a living. I don't think I would be that great at it, though... I tend to think small when it comes to projects... little details that I can add to make something special, so it would be hard to envision how a mansion's grounds should look or how to achieve that look. Plus I have no training in it whatsoever. I just like the idea. Minus the ugly uniforms. Ooo, maybe a nature photographer instead.

5. A criminal pathologist. Kind of like Jodie Foster in Silence of the Lambs, but less scary. Just studying cases, finding out what makes somebody tick. Looking for clues. Checking DNA and fingerprints in the huge database. I don't know if my job title I've assigned is actually accurate. But if there is a job in which I could look over a case, come up with conclusions, scan evidence to come to a conclusion about whodunnit and why, I'm into it. I love puzzles, so each case would be like that. Trying to solve this complex puzzle, each little piece a bit more of the picture.

Pass the Sunscreen

I know the color of our skin is the basis for almost everything that has happened to the people of the world. That and religion have been the cause of much strife and conflict, stereotyping, discrimination. You name it.

I just find it to be interesting how the ideas of long ago are still present in us today. For example, I read this book that was based in China many moons ago. In it, a woman born into a family of little means envied a girl she became friends with because of her lighter complexion. It meant that she was not out in the sun, in the fields working, much. The lighter your skin tone, the more privileged you appeared to be.

Today, I am friends with a guy of Indian descent. He hates the sun because it darkens his already dark skin. He despises getting any darker. I don't know why; after all, his tans usually come from visits to sunny places, not from manual labor in the hot sun, but I feel it has something to do with being "different" and not wanting to draw any more attention to that. If his skin gets darker, he will look more like something that he doesn't want to be.

In the black and Hispanic cultures, light-skinned verses dark-skinned is a big thing. Light-skinned deemed "better". Again, I take this from books I've read, things I've heard. I do not know first-hand. Yet, all this being said, I remember being a teenaged white girl wishing so badly that I could tan the way my darker-skinned sister could. I would burn trying to achieve what she did naturally. Still today, white girls go to tanning salons to get that darker look. They use lotions and sprays, whatever it takes, to look tan before the prom, before a big date. It's got to be a status symbol, right? Looks like you just got off of that yacht in the French Riviera.

There's a disconnect there: the darker want to be lighter, the lighter want to be darker. I always end up coming back to this quote from the movie Bulworth. For whatever reason, it has stuck with me since the one, and only, time that I saw the movie:

"All we need is a voluntary, free-spirited, open-ended program of procreative racial deconstruction. Everybody just gotta keep fuckin' everybody 'til they're all the same color."

It's going to happen one day. We will all be brown. Then I guess we'll just have religion to fight about.