So today I’m getting ready to go out to coffee with my sister and my mom and my son, and my daughter says, watching me from the morning bath she was using to warm up,
“Mom, am I too little to wear makeup?”
I reply, “You can wear it whenever you want. But please let me help you use it, so you don’t get it dirty or break it. I’ll buy you some if you promise to learn to use it respectfully.” (we’re talking about a kid who still comes in the house and strips down to her bra and panties, throwing things wherever she walks)
She asks, “Why do women wear makeup?”
“Well… some women think they aren’t beautiful enough as they are.”
“But why do you wear it? You’re beautiful.” (seriously!)
“I like it. It’s like art, like drawing.” (and it’s kind of a habit, but I don’t get to that, because she says:)
“Drawing on your face,” she says. “Like why don’t you draw a mustache or goatee then?”
I seriously love this kid so much.
So far in my thirty-four years, I haven’t been a holiday or Christmas hater. Believe me, I empathize with the many reasons people don’t enjoy the season. Bad memories, bad times, the stress many parents are under to provide for their children when they can’t make ends meet in the first place, the heartbreaks of families not reconciled, and maybe most oppressively the monolithic cultural edict that, firstly, EVERYONE celebrates Christmas and, secondly, EVERYONE has a goddamned happy one, or the terrorists have won!
I don’t know why I’ve consistently enjoyed Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years’, Valentine’s Day. So far. It could’ve gone a different way. First off I had a lot of resentment towards Christians and Christianity (which I left behind sometime in my early twenties), and certainly I have plenty of family drama I can trot out – the family drank and used more during the holidays, of course. But still. My memories are almost entirely positive; and I continue to have positive associations. Even with the wonkiness of the whole thing. My sister said today she wished no one would re-record any Christmas hits and I am likely to agree, because, c’mon, who needs another tarted-up version of “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas”, or even more nightmarish, non-sequiter, and anti-Christ, “Santa Baby”?
But still, tonight driving out in the cold to catch an engagement, the lights out and it’s cold and wet out, and maybe it’s just all those inane but kind of comforting traditions, and that every year I seem to catch people being breathtakingly lovely. I dunno. But it’s good times for this Hogaboom, at least.
In recent events:
Swimming, with the kids. And about one thousand teen boys in tiny bathing suits, for a swim meet. It was real fun to be the only thirtysomething lady walking out in a suit so daggy it’s see-thru in a few places. YOU’RE WELCOME
Walmart parking lot, after gratefully spending the last of a wee check Ralph got, on LED lights for the tree.
Saturday night, getting too cold to smoke, but I manage it anyway.
Phoenix’s idea for an ornament: LGBT button, “Stop The HATE”.
And today on the porch from the postman: my friend Dave’s Christmas mixtape, the third yearly installation, always excellent including the CD art (which this year featured Macho Man Randy Savage, and how is it I immediately recognize this man when I grew up without television? Scary). Driving home tonight after dropping a friend off in Monte I hear, for the first time, the following chestnut.
“It was real fun to be the only thirtysomething lady walking out in a suit so daggy it’s see-thru in a few places. YOU’RE WELCOME”
OMG. Perfect for this morning. The ass is currently falling out of mine. Hot tea out the nose hurts, btw.
The makeup thing is always a little weird. My mom let me wear clear mascara for a while – and seriously, WTF is that about? I boycotted makeup for a really long time, but I have to say that I was swayed when I read Primitive Mythology by Joseph Campbell. He talks about how primitive women used kohl on their eyes. It all goes with the premise that there is somehow more to us than mere DNA, we come loaded with symbology and the ability to recognize it, and the artist in all of us wants to blow those symbols up and somehow that’s what brings the beauty (that’s built into us as human beings) more fully into the world. The symbol of a woman’s eyes, is somehow recognized by all of us as a symbol of the feminine, and these prehistoric women would outline their eyes, as artists, to enhance the reaction that we all have to that somehow. I’m still trying to figure it out…and I can’t remember the entire gist of what he said, but it’s kinda cool.
(There is something about how newborn chicks, mere hours old will run from a cardboard symbol of an eagle pulled along a cord above their coop…the shadow terrifies them. However, if you pull it backwards, they don’t even flinch. They somehow KNOW that symbol of danger ANd the direction it must be moving in. New born turtles always run towards the sea, they somehow inherently know the direction in which to go and are never seen to be running in the wrong direction. On and on, there is some kind of un/subconscious thing at work in us that is so much bigger than our conscious minds can comprehend.)
On that note, if she ever feels like making her own cosmetics…which can be a pretty telling experience in searching for “natural” recipes and learning about the so-called “natural” chemicals that you often have to use, I live pretty close to Essential Wholesale, that’s where I get my stuff for soap. They have just about anything/everything you would need (http://www.essentialwholesale.com/) if you find some good recipes.
I love science and how it finds out stuff. Usually by physically or psychologically torturing really cute animals. I used to joke and call my brittle nature Wire Monkey Mom.
Thank you so much for that site! Phoenix was experimenting with making soap and shampoo a while back. She’d likely love making makeup! I need to sew her a lab coat first.
And really. WTF, I remember clear mascara, and until this moment I never thought, what *was* that about? & now I want to find some colored mascara like we wore in the 80s!
I’m getting all het up about makeup thinking about this.