Facing Our Faces

Magazine articles talk about how the use of filters on selfies has altered how women view themselves.

Seeking perfection is a myth because it implies there can be no growth. Achieving a perfect state there would be no higher you could go.

I’m doing things differently today to dismantle perfectionism.

The idea of not using a filter to change the appearance of my face and body appeals to me.

It’s a radical risk to go outside with your hair undone or your face without makeup. Mostly because women are held to and buy into a higher standard of what’s right.

The part of me that resists want to disrupt the traditional notion of what’s acceptable beauty.

At 55 years old I no longer cover applying a full face of makeup.
Those Sephora makeovers were gorgeous yet impossible to maintain day in and day out.

As well getting dolled up that way in my OKCupid photos did nothing to entrance men to send me messages.

It is in the imperfect where everyone shines as human beings who are our authentic selves.

Now I’m owed a free Sephora makeover. This time I will get one with a twist: to tell the makeup artist to use only 5 products. To design a look I can recreate on my own.

Today I think it’s time to celebrate differentness.

Glossy and stylized images aren’t real.

After the pandemic is over I intend to experiment with makeup in a subtle way.

Bravery is called for no matter how old a woman is.

The daring to look in the mirror and shout:

“I see you. I celebrate you.”

Real beauty is what’s on the inside. Expressing the inner outwardly is the goal. This is when a person is most beautiful:

Not being afraid to express themselves.

In the coming blog entry I talk about my experience getting a haircut during the pandemic. The photo of my haircut is unretouched. Without using a filter. In it I used only foundation blush mascara and lipstick.

You could call this approach a makeunder instead of a makeover.

There’s a thin line between art and artifice.

It’s time to get real. Some of us are getting depressed seeing photo-perfect images on Instagram.

My hope is to empower blog readers to do your own thing not what society tells you to do.

LL Cool Joe

I’ve come up with a catchy code name for Joe Biden:

LL Cool Joe.

The 1990s gave us LL Cool J–the rapper whose moniker was short for Ladies Love Cool James.

Today the LL stands for Liberals Love Cool Joseph.

Politicians should be mocked equally regardless of which party they belong to.

Mark my words:

Mr. Toupee will win re-election.

Like it or not our president is going to serve another 4 years.

Should LL Cool Joe win I’ll be surprised.

Tales from My Not-so-Green Life

It might be that No One is Too Small to Make a Difference.

I say that corporations are too big not to make a difference. They must be held accountable for their role in global warming.

My life on the other hand is Not-so-Green.

I order food to be delivered that comes in plastic containers. This isn’t good. Not for the planet and not for me either. Since hot plastic leaches chemicals into food.

What is the solution?

I plan instead of ordering dinner to be delivered to have soup when I have no energy to cook.

I think it comes down to making trade-offs. You can excel in one Green area and come up short in another Green area.

My aim is to find a suitable plastic container I can take with me to the deli counter to have the staff use and reuse the same container.

Instead of buying food that comes in a new container each time.

This tactic was talked about in a book a woman wrote about achieving zero waste. If I remember right the book was titled The Zero Waste Home.

The goal as I see it is to consume less–less electricity less gas and oil less of anything that is wasteful.

My electric bill statement has skyrocketed in the time of the pandemic. Plus New York City has had a record number of heatwaves this summer.

The air conditioner has been going at all hours in my apartment. That’s not-so-green. Only I can’t be in direct heat for longer than 10 minutes. I’m at greater risk for heat stroke.

I will search on the Container Store website for a reusable plastic container.

I expect the deli counter staff to look at me screw-eyed when I ask them to use my plastic container not theirs.

The Trash is for Tossers woman allegedly reduced her yearly waste to only one mason jar of trash.

That’s phenomenal–is it realistic for most of us?

Greta Thunberg

Greta Thunberg was only 16 when she published the book shown above. She is the face of climate change protesters. 6 Million individuals have joined her in school-striking for zero carbon emissions by 2030.

I don’t like to single people out this way. However I think what should be written about Thunberg is that she was diagnosed with Asperger’s.

In her own words in the book she writes that her disability isn’t a medical condition–it’s a gift.

She credits the Asperger’s as giving her the black-and-white thinking required to tackle the global warming issue.

In 1997 three years before I moved to my beloved Brooklyn I sold my last car to a mechanic for $400.

I didn’t want to incur the higher cost of auto insurance in Brooklyn. Nor did I want to spend an hour every day driving around looking for a parking spot. And I didn’t want to need to pay for costly car repairs.

In fact the prime reason I sold my car was that I didn’t want to be dependent on foreign oil.

In 1997 when I sold my car no one talked about global warming. I was in the vanguard in moving to a neighborhood where there were retail shops and food markets within walking distance.

I was a Visionary in giving up my car and deciding to walk everywhere.

Greta Thunberg nowhere in her book talks about the root cause of global warming:

How city planners prioritized building roads and highways so that people could travel by car when they had to get somewhere.

Not only that often the highways built in effect separated well-off neighborhoods from poor communities. Reinforcing inequality.

In New York City taking the bus and subway is a way to reduce your carbon footprint.

In the coming blog entry I want to talk with a twist about going Green.

I’m impressed with the Generation Z leaders who are out there striving to make a difference.

Finding Joy

The magazine above was hanging out on the rack untouched.

Curious I flipped through the pages. The recipes enticed me to buy the book. It also has positive feature articles.

I’ll take what can give me joy in this time when the COVID-19 outbreak hasn’t ended.

Anxiety and depression have been on the rise.

Covering my face and walking outdoors in sunny weather is going to be my M.O. when my mood tanks.

To hell with the science non-believers.

Yes–I’ll be going outside.

I won’t allow others to steal my sunshine.

It doesn’t cost a dime to take a walk.

Sunlight is free for everyone.

While we still have this glorious green earth I say: enjoy it.

Take a magazine like Sweet July out for a trip to park or avenue.

Sit on a bench and read to get empowered.

I’ll end here by saying that Women’s Health magazine features diverse voices and writers now.

Skip over its advertisements for food products and focus on the workouts.

I’ve been buying and reading magazines ever since the 1980s.

In New York City Hotaling’s and other stores sold hundreds of U.S. and international magazines.

Those magazine shops have been long gone. Shuttered like all the other mom-and-pop stores that were casualties of rising rents.

Today I submit that by parking yourself on a bench and reading a magazine you can go far.

You can go anywhere.

Living Lively

Hey–I love that blue eyeshadow! A simple line that says it all.

I’m a 55-year old Generation X girl who bought the book shown above. Even though it caters to the Generation Z crowd.

Individuals of all ages and stages of life could benefit from reading this motivational guide.

The book was right up my alley with its 7 Points of Power:

Wellness

World perspective

Media and societal influences

Thoughts and mindset

Education

Relationships

Creativity and community

Haile Thomas has Jamaican immigrant parents who instilled in her that she was a person of worth that should have self-esteem.

Thomas earned her success through hard work, determination, an unflappable set of values, and the love of her family.

I found this book on Amazon and bought it from my local independent bookseller.

I’m all for self-improvement.

Anything that can give me a mood boost in a healthy way I’ll take right now.

As soon as this book arrives I plan to make one of the healthful snack recipes.

Keep the faith folks. Good people like Haile Thomas are helping make good things happen for the rest of us.

Having Hope

Hope is called for.

I bought this coaster with the mini-easel from a street vendor in

Manhattan.

I’m an optimist.

You must be an optimist, or you won’t survive what you’re going through.

I’ve been living indoors for five months. It has taken a toll as I’m a gregarious person.

Today I go outside to my job again. There I need to cover my face for 6 hours.

Yesterday’s outfit:

Beet-color tee shirt with magenta pants and black shoes. An orange bandanna covering my nose and mouth.

Out on the street I’m the only one wearing a bandanna. The colorful bandannas get washed once a week. I wear a different one every day.

It’s far better than clogging a landfill with single-use disposable masks.

As I venture outside again I’m not always confident that there’s anything to hope for.

Yet hope I have because it’s summer. The sun is shining. The heat is here.

It’s how I see things: I believe in humanity. Even still—I believe in humanity.

I would like to write in the blog about my insight and observations as this season moves along.

I would like to see change. For myself. For others. And for my country.

New Ad-Free Blog

At long last I’ve removed the advertisements from this blog that WordPress inserts into every free account.

I’ve paid to remove the ads and create a URL for the blog.

Years ago I read the Kim Gordon memoir Girl in a Band. She was the bassist and vocalist for Sonic Youth while the band performed.

They are my favorite band of all time. Dating from when I played them on the radio when I was a disc jockey in the 1980s.

To get readers to go out and buy Gordon’s memoir I want to quote from the book.

Kim Gordon wrote:

“I believe the radical is more interesting when it appears ordinary and benign on the outside.”

Reading that sentence and thinking about this for a long time I was inspired to want to publish a second memoir.

In keeping with the title Girl in a Band I thought about talking in the new book about what it’s like to be a Girl on the Left.

A person asked me if the title Left of the Dial referred to politics.

It refers to doing your own thing–my literary agent understood the theme was “Enjoy your quirkiness.”

In the last week I have been thinking about this some more. And thinking about it again: how I always wanted to live an artist’s life in the city.

It can be a challenge when as a woman you rebel the role you’re expected to play:

Suburban breeder with two kids two dogs a Land Rover and white picket fence house with a porch.

Though hey if you want to raise a family and bake brownies for your kids that’s okay too.

I’m fascinated by everyone’s personality.

There’s a reference in my memoir to where I’m riding the subway and wondering about the inner lives of my fellow straphangers–the other riders.

Those of us who are ordinary and benign–I say watch out for us!

Postcard from the Ledge

The postcard shown above I took off a ledge in a bookstore.

It’s a reminder to me and a warning to challenge the status quo.

Living through the pandemic [the outbreak hasn’t gone away] I find myself pulled away from conforming.

I resist conforming to societal rules and norms.

What changed?

In my Republican neighborhood most of the people walking down the street have open faces. They don’t cover their face with a mask or bandanna.

Seeing this brazen contempt for respecting the health of others got me thinking: Who should I want to or try to impress at this point in my life?

I go outside wearing a red or black bandanna like a gunslinger in the Old Wild West. I walk in the middle of the street to avoid the people who haven’t covered their faces.

Seeing open-faced yahoos put people’s health at risk–as if the COVID-19 outbreak is no real threat–was the catalyst for my resistance to accepting the status quo in society.

Over 100,000 people have died from the COVID-19 outbreak.

Wearing a mask is a sign of respect.

It eludes me what part of “I respect you and you respect me” the bare-faced folk don’t get.

I will end here by telling readers:

Resist living for self-interest and personal gain at the expense of others.

Resist following the trend of “everyone out for themselves.”

Dare to have compassion.

Having compassion might not be in fashion.

Yet I submit the alternative is no option.

Key of Life

Alicia Keys in her July 2020 InStyle interview echoes what I’ve always thought.

In Keys own words:

“You know, we do a really good job of judging each other and assuming who people are when we don’t even know them. To me, the most important thing we can do right now is take a second to see and appreciate each other as we are.”

Two years ago I titled a blog entry See Who We Are. I wrote then: see who I am not who you think I am.

It’s a fact: Alicia Keys skipped two grades and won a full scholarship to Columbia University.

“See Who We Are” is the title of an X rock band song from three decades ago. I played this song on my radio show back then.

What’s on the surface really has no ability to predict the content of a person’s character.

In the next blog entry I’m going to talk about what I’ve learned living through four months of the pandemic.