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.

The Problem with Pretty

The new June book The Problem with Pretty I checked out of the library.

The author has a PhD in Health Psychology with a focus on perception. In the nonfiction guide she rightly asserted that it’s often white men in control in the patriarchy who judge you and me as either pretty or ugly.

It’s far better to engage in self-adoration at our own hands and hearts. Instead of waiting for or wanting others to stamp us as beautiful.

Th real curiosity is that I didn’t ever think about my body except when I weighed 138 pounds and wanted to lose weight. I lost about 20 pounds over the decades. Today I’m OK with the number on the scale.

What interests me more is having the “functional fitness” to carry home a 25-pound tote bag of groceries or a tote bag full of gifts from a local boutique.

The curious reality is that I didn’t think about whether I was pretty–either in my eyes or in other people’s eyes at all when I was younger. It wasn’t until I turned 50 that I looked in the mirror and realized I was photogenic.

Yet even I face with my pretty face ghosting on OKCupid and scammers on Plenty of Fish.

Only being thin and pretty ironically guarantees that sleazy men will come after you. As well when you’re thin and pretty and INTELLIGENT men aren’t interested in you. They want you to open your mouth to kiss not speak.

As it stands, I’m not proud of how I look. It’s an accident of genes at birth. Nothing I fought for and won.

Those of us whose mother is 88 and still alive and kicking. When she has wrinkles like rivers and purple mottled skin. Should not care about our looks but our longevity.

What good is the plastic surgery if we’re not eating well and breaking a sweat? The Grim Reaper when they come looking for us is not going to be fooled by a pretty face into thinking it’s not our time to enter the pearly gates.

The author asserts that women who have a connection to their ethnicity and take pride in their heritage are immune from internalizing the pervasive beauty shame that all too often plagues us.

Buy The Problem with Pretty or check it out of the library. It was published this month in June and has two 5-star reviews on Amazon already.

Sparkle and Shine

The Breathe magazine Building Better Habits edition has a feature article titled Dressing the Part. About choosing outfits to improve your mood.

Per the editors:

“When you add a bit of sparkle, even it it’s just putting on a necklace with your T-shirt, you can feel more sparkling in life.”

There’s proof of this in real life. Take this: One day a person canceled our plans. Imagine getting dressed up then having nowhere to go.

It makes a positive difference on an ordinary day to be sitting on the couch in elevated clothes.

For those of us who can’t afford a $150/therapy session dressing up on the regular can’t be beat.

Though if you have clinical depression or otherwise need professional help I say reach out to find out where you can get that help.

With another birthday coming on I have what could be considering a shocking confession: In my life other things are taking priority.

It goes without saying that I’ll always make the effort to dress well.

Only today I realize that when so much going on in the world is not right there’s no shame in taking a beat to accept this tenet:

Everyone living on earth is doing the best we can with what we were given.

On a day that the shoes are not shined or our hair doesn’t look like a Drybar salon blowout: This is OK folks.

What this sad and at times screwed-up world needs is for us to understand that not everyone is going to show up dressed for an event when there’s no event.

To have compassion should be expected. Besides who wants to rack up debt buying clothes if it means we can’t afford to retire from our jobs at a decent age.

That said I’ll take the necklace to make an outfit sparkle so that I feel sparkling.

This chain reaction doesn’t have to cost $1,000 for the hardware.

There’s no shame in this love of adornment either.

Shine on!

Seeing Our Beauty

My stance is that each of us needs to have a loving response to ourselves when we look in the mirror. At 60 years old I like what I see in the mirror. After too long staring at my face microscopically in the bathroom mirror and having a critical view of the skin on my face.

What changed and why do I no longer care about this? I’ve seen an 87-year-old woman with no makeup on her face wrinkles all over and a few extra pounds. She did not resort to $100 face creams or a costly facelift or drastic diet.

My ethic is to frown on going under the knife or on getting fillers and using filters.

The fact that material objects like designer clothes and a Birkin bag are praiseworthy, and our physical pulchritude has always mattered more in society than our health and happiness is whacked.

I feel for Linda Evangelista who has joined the 50+ club. Beauty in traditional terms is often an accident of birth. Such beauty can open doors. Only what’s behind those velvet ropes is often not the best environment for feeling great about ourselves.

Under the strobe lights it can feel good when others stroke you. Wake up in the morning to frizzy tangled hair and the remnants of yesterday’s makeup and you’re back at the drawing board needing more affirmation.

Far better it is for each of us however old we are today to look in the mirror and like what we see. This is the first step in liking others.

Perhaps a dose of listening to the Billy Joel song “Just the Way You Are” is in order. He didn’t want his lover to go changing. The singer liked her just the way she was.

I say it’s time—it’s always the right time—to do what’s harder. It might have been the natural response to be harsh on ourselves.

Let’s take a beat to see the whole picture—that is the whole photo—instead of picking apart each part of our face or body. Find one thing we like about our body. Play that up.

The Beauty issue of Harper’s Bazaar this month has a playlist of songs you can download to listen to. The songs talk about being beautiful.

The Path to Freedom

Like Alicia Keys I’ve been on an odyssey to cancel out the outside noise. To draw strength from within as well as drawing a line with eyeliner.

If you ask me the path to freedom starts when you get loud and proud about who you are and what you stand for.

As tempting as it might be to try to conform so that others will like you:

I think repressing your soul will only lead to illness.

I take inspiration from Alicia Keys and her passion to make a difference not just sing a song.

Unlike Keys freedom for me has come in wearing makeup after years of not wearing makeup.

Applying eyeshadow and eyeliner has been an instant thought-lift as well as face-lift

If this sounds frivolous think again: even a public library is hosting a workshop on beauty for its patrons.

I tip my True Religion striped cap to Alicia Keys for telling her story and revealing herself on the page.

Everyone is beautiful with or without makeup.

Expressing ourselves without fear is exactly the positive prescription needed.

Think for yourself. Dress for yourself. Dare to be yourself.

This is what I plan to do in the coming year.

Truth is Beauty

Wasn’t there a line in a poem that truth is beauty and beauty is truth?

I’m coming to the end of reading the Alicia Keys memoir More Myself.

Pages 210-211 are worth the cost of buying the book. Here Keys talks about going without makeup:

“I don’t want to cover up anymore…not my face, not my mind, not my soul, not my dreams, not my struggles, not my emotional growth. Nothing.”

Tens of thousands of women posted photos to the hashtag #NoMakeup.

One person sniped to Keys that if she looked like Keys the woman could choose not to wear makeup too.

To this Keys said: “My deepest intention is that we all find a path to whatever freedom feels like for us–and that is unique to each person .”

If you ask me it is in living an authentic life that a person is truly free. Keys believes we crave the authentic in our narratives not just in our appearance.

The path to freedom is different for everyone.

My odyssey started ironically when I started to wear makeup after years of not wearing makeup.

I would like to talk in coming blog entries about individuality again.

About having the freedom to express yourself with or without lipstick.

Celebrate Instead of Tolerate

On the radio last week a therapist talked about celebrating others in the culture instead of only tolerating or accepting them.

I didn’t ever like the word tolerance precisely because I thought merely tolerating someone’s difference didn’t go far enough.

I have been turned off interacting with a man who turned out to be homophobic.

In my future OKCupid profile I’m going to list open-mindedness as one of the 6 Things I Can’t Live Without.

As I referred to recently in a blog entry here I have been writing about the beauty of individuality for years now.

Friday, June 19 is Juneteenth–the day of Freedom for African Americans in our history.

For awhile now I haven’t liked to celebrate the Fourth of July.

No only do I detest sitting around a patio table at a barbecue.

It has always rubbed me the wrong way that we were celebrating a holiday that didn’t guarantee every American their freedom.

And I don’t eat hot dogs or burgers–yet that’s another story.

We need to celebrate each other every day.

We should take joy and pride in everyone’s true nature.

We should hold in high esteem the culture they come from.

I have a couple of fashion binders and a beauty binder.

In the beauty binder I insert pages with tips on makeup taken from magazines.

In the beauty binder I insert photos of women of all colors.

I like to look through the photos for inspiration.

Everyone being ourselves makes the world wonderful.

I think every person living on earth is beautiful.

That a lot of people don’t view others this way is sad.

In coming blog entries I’m going to talk about what I think in more detail.

I’ll talk soon about a remarkable discovery I made two weeks ago. And about one of my earliest experiences in life as a teenager.

By telling my stories I hope to give others permission to tell their stories.

The Circle of Life

What I’ve been thinking about:

In the time of the pandemic where a lot of people struggle with food insecurity I have a well-stocked refrigerator bursting with food.

When you have plenty what else could you need or want?

My goal when I’m able to get a FreshDirect time slot for food delivery is to use the link on that website to donate money to the Common Pantry in New York City.

I’ve become grateful today for the only thing that counts to me in this time: the grocery deliveries coming every week.

It’s not the Caudalie face scrub I bought that I really care about.

My thoughts go out to people who are unable to get food.

The New York City government has been delivering food boxes to anyone who needs food in the time of the pandemic.

Like Lyn Slater the Accidental Icon I’ve come to question the things I took for granted on an ordinary pandemic-free day.

As I’ve always thought those of us who are fortunate should be doing everything we can to help others who aren’t fortunate.

Now more than ever being grateful for your fortune in life should be the rule not the exception in how people think.

This is the circle of life: giving back what you have been given.

I will always talk about clothes and makeup in here. To cheer up readers. To make readers feel good. To spread joy.

Perhaps a spoon full of this sugar can make the medicine go down like Mary Poppins sang in the 1970s movie.

The fact is in America people are going hungry.

Actress Viola Davis revealed that she battled childhood hunger.

She has championed the Hunger Is campaign for No Kid Hungry.

In my view even donating canned goods like soup and vegetables to your local food pantry is a valid form of charity when you can’t do anything else.

My goal when I retire from my library job is to volunteer my time and money to social causes more so than I do today.

Hunger. It’s a real issue. No one should go hungry.

In America The Fruited Plain food should be plentiful. The fact that it’s not is a shame.

Conscious Chic in a Crisis

Yes–I’ve been thinking about what I termed Conscious Chic in a blog category.

The Accidental Icon Lyn Slater talks about this in her latest blog post [see below].

Who needs 10 pairs of the exact same pants?

Who needs a bursting closet and overstuffed dresser drawers?

The manufacturing process of garments has long been a destroyer of our natural world.

It’s time to act in a considered fashion like Lyn Slater believes.

Though I’ve bought an eye shadow compact I intend for this to be the only beauty buy for the foreseeable future.

As well I have the intention to dress in the clothes hanging out in my wardrobe today.

I’m not a Green saint as far as this goes. Like Lyn Slater I’ve been thinking about this.

She talked of being creative.

Acting creative can do a world of good in transforming a simple wardrobe of clothes and collection of makeup into a stunning reflection of individuality.

You don’t have to be rich or thin to express yourself through beauty and fashion.

You can trust that you’ll look good without needing a trust fund.

Read the Lyn Slater Accidental Icon blog entry here.

Beauty and the Boots

purple boots

I’m thinking more about the confessions in the Patti Smith article in Harper’s Bazaar.

She invests in coats and boots which has been my game plan in recent years.

The idea that your fashion gives you freedom resonated with me. Boots aren’t traditionally sexy when they’re the type Smith wears.

This is what cheers me as a cisgender woman. That you don’t have to wear stilettos to make a statement about who you are and what you stand for.

The boots above I bought in December in a shoe-buying frenzy. I decided that boots were going to be my thing since I really don’t care to totter in stilettos and pumps.

I”m not keen to wear classic pumps. Not after having worn them for 9 years to legal and corporate office jobs in the 1990s.

A lot of guys on internet dating websites express an interest in meeting a “sexy” woman. The definition of sexy is erotic. I don’t want to walk down the street with everything hanging out for men to see.

It gives me hope that if Patti Smith had a husband and was an iconic rock star that I can meet a guy without having to wear a skintight cleavage-baring dress with a slit up to there.

I’ve decided to wear booties and boots on dates. Mid-heel black booties and the purple ones shown above.

The Bazaar article is right: fashion gives you freedom.

On the cusp of 55 today I think about how we can use fashion as a means of expressing who we are and what we stand for.

There’s a beauty in expressing your Individuality. That’s the ticket to living in health harmony and happiness.

I want to talk more in coming blog entries about searching for Mr. Right. A person that in my case should be Mr. Left in terms of politics.