Harper’s Bazaar Obsessions Issue 2026

Per the editors of Harper’s Bazaar:

“Obsession has always been at the center of fashion…This issue is about those kinds of obsessions: the ones that fuel our sense of identity, our sense of purpose, our sense of self.”

I ask you: Can being obsessed with something be empowering?

I think after reading the book The Conjuring of America that there’s a definite link between the physical and spiritual.

What better way to embody this twin-ship than through dressing up in the style that speaks to us. In the clothes that ignite our desire to be alive fully in our skin and and nobody else’s.

Pre-Covid I had been mired in an existential crisis about what my style “should” be. Taking the Visual Therapy quiz proved a short-lived exercise in how to dress.

Finding out about Allison Bornstein’s Three Word Method changed everything. I could see that how you and I dress cannot be prescribed by an outsider or even a person who calls themselves an expert.

Often I looked back on the girl I was in college in the 1980s who dressed in head-to-toe black long before it was the trend.

The idea that an obsession can fuel our sense of self is at the heart of reinvention. How we dress is the mirror of our mood and yes our sense of identity, purpose, and self at the time we’re living in.

The core of who we are doesn’t change. I don’t think that it does. Yet we can take on a new persona and new worldview as we get older. Which is a good thing.

Our fashion changes because we are not the same person we were at 20.

Today I’ve gotten on a carousel of chasing color. In vibrant pairings like melon jeans and a green top. Pink and red come together too. I wear a green sweatshirt and yellow sneakers that I liken to reggae colors.

This is how all of us grow and change and better ourselves over the years:

Through whatever our new obsessions are that spark the joy we can’t live without.

I liken dressing up and walking down the street as being on The Runway to Resilience. For how we fashion ourselves can help us heal.

Coming up I’ll review a book that was too riveting to put down. I broke my vow to read only fluff like beauty and design.

The Conjuring of America exposed how the ubiquitous blue jeans that everyone wears today had their birth as clothes that enslaved Africans wore on plantations.

Expressing ourselves through how we dress is a unique kind of magic.

The Conjuring of America centers how 400 years of Black Women’s Magic was at the heart of American history.

Going Left

One other reason I had in titling the URL Girl on the Left is that there’s no one right way to think feel live act dress and love. Just the way that is right for you. And the way that is right for me.

Left of the Dial is a lifestyle not a political screed at the end of the day.

In the 1980s I was a disc jockey on FM radio in college. The music we played on-air was called Left of the Dial because it was alternative.

I happen to think that there’s beauty in everyone living on earth being unique. We have so much to give each other in terms of our humanity which is sacred.

I often write elsewhere about these components of lifestyle: How each of us thinks, feels, lives, acts, dresses, and loves. The fact that how we do these things is an individual approach is wonderful I think.

Pierce your nose .Ink your body with tattoos. Get locs. Or do nothing like this.

Bake brownies for your kids in Sandpoint, Idaho. Have an ordinary life. Watch TV. Scroll social media.

It’s all good. However you and I express ourselves in living our lives is phenomenal.

Some of us don’t live in the mainstream. Others have the white picket fence life.

Either way honoring embracing and accepting each other’s uniqueness is called for.

I’ve written this before so I must sound like a broken record.

Enjoy the remainder of the summer.

National Self-Care Month

September is National Self-Care Month.

The Self-care challenge for the month is to engage in one act of self-care each day.

Self-care can be simple yet not easy to attend to. In a society that doesn’t prioritize the well-being of citizens (it prioritizes that we buy things to feel good or improve ourselves).

I say that self-care can be as simple as looking in the mirror and telling ourselves: “I feel good. I am good.” Say this three times out loud in the morning before going out.

Self care that might not be simple is changing our mindset from negative to positive. Too in not expecting ourselves to do the right things every day.

I for one have become okay with wearing regular blue jeans. Who needs to wear a ball gown skirt to go see a movie?

Right. Easing up on expecting ourselves to be perfect is the real deal for National Self-Care Month if you ask me.

Like a woman I knew told me decades ago: “Perfection is a myth because it implies there can be no growth.”

I say too to listen to the Cyndi Lauper song “Good Enough.” As really good enough is often good enough.

Coming up a second take on why I titled this URL Girl on the Left. It isn’t primarily in terms of politics. It’s a lifestyle more than anything.

What Beauty Is

On the opposite experience a woman who is attractive gets hit on regularly. And not often by genuinely decent men.

This doesn’t seem like an atrocity. Only it reinforces the reality that there’s a standard notion of what beauty is. And that those of us who don’t fit into this paint-by-numbers definition of beauty are ugly. Not worth asking on a date.

We need to think of what beauty is in terms of the non-physical. I don’t like that our faces and bodies are the first thing others see and form an impression of. Within 7 seconds apparently!

Justice is beauty.

Compassion is beauty.

Self-expression is beauty.

Recovery is beauty.

Identity is beauty.

And so on. If we human beings could just see inside the persona to who each other is in our internal makeup that would be lovely.

There’s minor deviations that can cause us to feel poorly about our bodies too. Irrespective of what others think.

Only this self-perception is often the echo of those outside voices crowning you and me as either beautiful or not beautiful.

I say: Our bodies are maps of where we’ve been in our lives. I have kitchen scars from burning my arms taking dishes out of the oven. Today I can say to myself: I was cooking a delicious meal. So be it having scars.

What I think is beautiful you might not think is beautiful.

Either way seeing this beauty as it appears to us is a way to take joy in life.

A dandelion shooting out of the crack in a concrete sidewalk can be beautiful. A struggle that we’re experiencing or have overcome can be a thing of beauty too.

I’ll end here with this point: We should not judge what each of us finds beautiful. This is the human condition: To enjoy the beauty we see.

Easy Beauty

I read the book above in three days. I recommend that followers buy the book to read.

Imagine that like Chloe Cooper Jones you’re walking down the street and hear others say: “What is that?”

This was an ordinary reaction Cooper Jones received because her physical disability was obvious. She was not treated like a human being who has feelings.

I think how could anyone living on earth think it’s OK to act that way? How could they not see that there was nothing at all right about what they were doing.

Did their family not teach them to have compassion? My family did not teach me to hate. I was expected to treat everyone I interacted with in the same open, equal way.

Faced with the reality that Cooper Jones exposed in her memoir Easy Beauty it’s hard for me to believe that most people are kind and caring.

In the coming blog entry I’m going to talk about how I think having a photogenic face and lithe body is NOT always a prize or blessing either. Case in point: I’ve only been ghosted every time on OKCupid. The only guy on OKCupid who expressed an interest in me was a scammer.

There’s no comparing everyone’s pain to each other. What each of us goes through is not a birthday party. Whatever thing we’re going through should not be minimized or taken lightly.

Yet even in the face of a struggle it always pay to have a sense of humor to get you through the hard time.

That is the strength of Chloe Cooper Jones voice in Easy Beauty: she tackles a terrible experience with grace and insight. She has come out a winner and her memoir is a must-read.

Selfish – You Decide

I checked this new 2026 memoir out of the library. Reviewers gave the book 3.7 stars on Amazon. I recommend checking Selfish out of the library. As opposed to buying it.

The fact is I think other women in America might relate to what Docherty was going through in her life. This is why I recommend reading Selfish.

Reading Selfish I was struck by how the author appeared to engage in what’s called “virtue signaling.” I think when a person does good work for others this doesn’t have to be touted.

Though of course women should “toot our own horns.” We’re given flak for promoting ourselves.

In reality though I couldn’t relate to Docherty. She went to Yale for an undergraduate degree and has a JD from Pepperdine University.

How she could not be happy with her life I have no idea. The un-selling point for buying the book was that the author had an emotional affair. Throughout the book she justified this and other actions. I don’t know about this.

Docherty lives in another stratosphere of society and economic reality. Proof that connections and clout will get you a literary agent and book contract with a traditional publisher.

Only even with its drawbacks I say: read the book. I’d love to hear what others think of this first-person account. There could be those of us who get it about what Docherty’s going through.

I tend to read books that I’m not the target reader for. I read all kinds of nonfiction.

For readers who love total honesty in a juicy tell-all this might be just the book for an August afternoon. So pour yourself a lemonade and drink in the narrative.

National Lipstick Day

Today is National Lipstick Day. I wrote about this last year.

Lipstick can be kept for 12 to 18 months. I won’t leave the house without swiping on lipstick.

I’m going to discard a lipstick that I no longer favor. I’d like to go to Sephora and ask a makeup artist there to help me choose a new lipstick.

With all that’s not right in the world today using a bullet of bravura to make a statement is called for.

Why not protest with a power pout? Why not dress to influence your audience to take the stand you want them to?

The converse to influencing others via how we dress or look is that we should do this for our satisfaction.

Why not realize that not everyone cares about the same things you do?

I’m impressed whether a person is dressed to the nines or they appear disheveled.

To each our own. I learned in recent years that how we appear doesn’t always get us ahead in life. Even if we have a full face of makeup on.

So it’s far better to get dolled up [or not] for our own happiness. Not to get others to give us things.

Living our lives calls for kindness. Kindness counts.

Some of us don’t need or want to wear lipstick or other makeup.

I say if putting on a colorful pout makes you feel good: Go for It!

Go for It! If you don’t want to make up that’s fine too. Go for It either way.

Music for the Sneers

The beauty of the February 2026 book above is its focus on rap and rock stars with a social conscience that hammer injustice. When Rock Met Hip-Hop chronicles the mostly fruitful expression of testosterone-fueled anger.

With one sole reference to a woman rapper that is Queen Latifah. In 1991 I played her song “U-N-I-T-Y” on my radio show.

The cross-pollinated sound riot delighted and at times frightened the ears of American youth.

Of course the Beastie Boys were right that there would be “No Sleep Till Brooklyn.”

To buy the book I’ll quote from Rey Oropeza as his comment is the selling point:

“I realize the need to vent. But if you bring an ill to the table sooner or later you have to start talking about solutions.”

I’m all for real positive lasting change. Revenge is not the remedy. An eye for an eye is not the answer.

Public Enemy with their guitar frenzy put forth that the CIA and FBI had MLK killed. They were in righteous rotation on college radio in the 1980s

Something to think about.

I checked the book out of the library. It’s worth buying I would say.

Loving Our Laugh Lines

It is possible to love our laugh lines. If we could bottle our sense of humor and sell it to other women who are ashamed of how they look we’d be billionaires. Indeed employing a sense of humor is what got me as far as I have in life jumping over the hurdles I faced.

We have to laugh, or we’re not going to survive whatever hell and heartache is in our lives. And on the topic of pretty I would like to give a spoonful of humor to help the medicine go down.

That is: If astrology is to be believed I’ve kept up a youthful appearance because the sign Gemini appears in my horoscope. Whatever. Could that really be why I look 15 years younger than I am–61 today?

The picture above was taken with an iPhone in May. I think an iPhone camera makes everyone look good in photos.

Ordinarily like in the photo above I don’t wear foundation and blush anymore. Just eyeliner or mascara and lipstick. I won’t leave the house without swiping on lipstick.

The author of The Problem with Pretty stated that the average women uses 10 to 12 products per day to get ready to go out into the world. Like deodorant, cleansers, shampoo, and setting spray, etc.

In reality I do nothing to my face except use micellar water to take off the eyeliner. On the advice of Jessica Cruel the editor-in-chief of the online Allure beauty magazine I bought the Glow Recipe ceramide cleanser. Sometimes I use the cleanser. Other times I do not.

You and I will wake up when real life intervenes with our normal routine. Acting as the caregiver for a mother who is 88 will change your perception of the need to go under the knife to scalpel yourself seductive to men.

An 88-year old woman who has wrinkles like rivers and mottled purple skin isn’t going to show up like 70-year old Maye Musk in a magazine advertisement for makeup like Cover Girl or was it Maybelline.

The fact that a double-8s octogenarian is still kicking and alive shows that longevity counts more than using potions and lotions to remain youthful. The Grim Reaper won’t be fooled by our youthful appearance when he comes to get us on our last day.

For three years on my birthday I treated myself to a Sephora makeover. Of course I looked gorgeous after the makeup artist powdered and puffed me. Whatever to this too. Soon after I didn’t have the energy and couldn’t muster the desire to put on a full face of makeup like in the After photo she took.

Reading The Problem with Pretty was enough to get me to shore up my feeling that I don’t care to impress other people with how I look. Not when idiot men in the patriarchy are pulling women’s purse strings in capitalist America to get us to toe the line and eyeliner to conform to their definition of pretty.

Sez who that you and I are nothing unless others like and approve of us?

Feeling ashamed of our bodies or anything else about ourselves and feeling unworthy is all too common. The author exposes that often it’s us women judging each other.

In a coming blog entry I might write about and explore the topic of the intergenerational shame you and I can feel that we inherited from our mothers.

Smile! You want to look real pretty smile! Smiling is an instant face and mood lift. You’ll look better and feel better smiling than spending hundreds or thousands of dollars a cosmetic procedure.

Beauty Unbound

Each of us should use our free will to choose how we want to present ourselves to the world. The author of the Problem with Pretty states point-blank that “Self-care is resistance.”

The guide is written in the right convincing way to expose how the majority of American women internalize shame when others (usually White men in the patriarchy who call the shots) are judging whether you and I are pretty or ugly.

My story: For too long to count I was thinking about my time in college in the 1980s and the weird clothes and garish makeup I wore. Imitating the face of Siouxsie Sioux, the lead singer of the Banshees, I slathered on a smoky eye, dark lipstick, and crimson blush.. Every day.

You could not see my real face back then. Luckily when I turned 35 all traces of that makeup were gone. I simply stopped using the war paint. And maybe using the word war before paint is apt. Not only was I fighting that the notion of traditional beauty was the only standard or should be a standard to begin with:

Too I was hiding under that mask because I was a rebel back then. It was the 1980s–a decade of extremes. Shoulder pads so big a plane could take off from them. Outsized ambition in the era of Wall Street wunderkinds.

My one regret about The Problem with Pretty is the Truth. Powell-Hicks corroborates the way things have been for too long. Using research and her own first-person account. Again I’m always impressed with motivational books that use memoir to tell a story.

Powell-Hicks details how when she attended an HBCU in Alabama the other Black women students thought she was too thin. A size 4 the author wanted to lose weight! It was the firs time she realized that a Black woman could be “thick” and pretty. Having lived in Orange County all her life before then. There she experienced racism based on her looks. A factor in why she internalized beauty shame.

In the coming blog entry I’m going to talk about my first-person experience with beauty unbound. To illustrate that you and I should not waste five minutes caring about pleasing men with how we look.

Yes, the time has come to choose how you and I want to present ourselves to the world. “They” might not like our newfound confidence in our bodies that enables us to resist feeling ashamed.

That’s O.K. I for one wasn’t satisfied with the men on offer in my life who revolved in and out of restaurant doors on the endless first dates that were duds.

Coming up: This blogger’s expose of her own alternative approach to pretty.