QOTD: "The measure of a man is decided by one or two sheep." - Paul Hofmann
(Okay, he was talking about a sheep shearing contest, but it isn't so funny in context)
Reading: Tim Severin, In Search of Robinson Crusoe
Listening to: The Chenille Sisters, Room to Breathe
Decluttering accomplishments: a whole lot of household paperwork
Before I get to anything else, I did finally finish and post the Caucasus travelogue. You, too, can see that lovely Caspian sea beach next to the oil derrick factory. Also, the car did need a new generator, sigh. Still, it's cheaper than a new car.
I also wanted to note two news items I ran across this week, both of which have gotten insufficient attention. The first is Senator Larry Craig's nefarious actions in blocking a large number of promotions of Air Force officers. The figures I've read vary from 200 to over 850, but even the lower numbers are pretty disgusting. He's abusing his power to hold up promotions in order to get the Air Force to give four more planes to the Idaho Air National Guard. It's not like the people whose lives he's disrupting have anything to do with policy making.
The other story I wanted to mention is the viral epidemic amongst vultures in India. There's a real fear that these particular vultures could become extinct in five years. Why care? Well, aside from the idea that any species becoming extinct is bad, there are deeper implications. Vultures play a major role in cleaning the environment, particularly in a place like India without very efficient sanitation systems. And it's also possible that this virus (which is not yet identified) could spread to other species.
As for what I actually did this week, there was a bunch of the usual at work. On Thursday, I went to the dentist, which is only significant because of having had to relocate and find a dentist here, making this somewhat overdue. She seems to be okay and, overall, things aren't bad. I need to get one filling replaced and she suggested I use a fluoride rinse once a week.
Today, I went to see "Spellbound." I'd seen good reviews of this documentary and was pretty sure I'd like it. For those who haven't heard about it, it follows eight kids who competed in the 1999 National Spelling Bee. There's a level at which I think that competitive spelling is silly. It's obvious that the word lists have little to do with real vocabulary growth. And I'm not convinced that the intensity of the competition is healthy. I'll also admit that my feelings are slanted by my own experience with spelling bees. My brother was the school spelling champion when he was in 5th grade and lost at the Long Island bee, so didn't get to go to Washington for the finals. The next year, Elliot was in 6th grade and I was in 5th and our school deliberately didn't have a bee. They figured we'd be the two finalists and didn't want to push the whole sibling rivalry thing. In 6th grade, I won the school spelling bee, but lost the regional semifinal. I still remember that the word I missed was "chassis." (I spelled it c-h-a-s-i-s.) The annoying thing is that the girl who won should have been disqualified a couple of rounds earlier because she made a mistake and corrected herself, but we didn't challenge them allowing that. Realistically, it doesn't matter and it's unlikely I would have done any better at the Long Island finals than Elliot had, but it felt like a big deal at the time. I didn't put in nearly the effort that these kids did, though. I do remember studying some word lists and there are actually two words I remember from it - "autochthonous" and "syzygy." At least the latter is one I've actually had occasion to use. The really odd thing is that I don't think I'm a particularly good speller now. There are several words that I have mental blocks about and have to look up all the time. (At least they're words that have some obvious difficulty, unlike the problem one of my colleagues has with confusing "were" and "where".) The movie highlighted how much I've forgotten, as there were a lot of words I had no clue about. On the other hand, how could somebody actually miss "banns"? All in all, it's an interesting film and I'm glad I saw it.
The other thing I wanted to write about this week also has a connection with sixth grade. But there's a bit of background I need to provide first. I'm going to Chicago in two weeks and the trip includes going to a very formal event. I've got a suitable dress - long and elegant, black with a huge white satin collar. (My wide vocabulary doesn't extend to a word for the collar style, but I think there must be one.) I have suitable jewelry, though I haven't quite decided between wearing my amethyst and rhinestone necklace and earrings or just using a crystal tattoo. (The latter, for those unfamiliar with it, is basically a bunch of crystals you can glue onto any suitable part of your body.) I have reasonably suitable shoes, though I still might find more perfect ones between now and then. One advantage of long dresses is that your shoes become less important, though. What I didn't have is makeup. Not only did I not have the right sort of glamorous makeup, I had almost none at all. Not quite none - there's always the basic foundation and my classic red lipliner and lipstick. (And, yes, if I wear lipstick, I do the lipliner thing. It really makes a difference.) So I went shopping for makeup.
Now, comes the part that has to do with sixth grade. That's about when I first experimented with makeup. I had an advantage over the other girls in my class, because my mother sold Avon. I had easy access to all her samples and she allowed me to get various products that were specifically designed for teenagers. There was good business in that, since I also brought the catalogues into school and some of the other girls ordered stuff from her. It went further the next year because our home ec class included some lessons in things like manicures and makeup. (This was 1971, for those who might find this shocking.) You dotted on foundation, maybe putting some concealer under your eyes to even out colors. There were all sorts of rules about slightly darker shades to make your nose look a different shape and how you used three colors of eye shadow and so on. The colors were mostly subtle ones, with names like "shell pink" and "sheer coral" for lipstick, though the blue eye shadow sticks we used now seem horribly garish, particularly as we put our eye shadow all the way up to our (carefully plucked) brows. The brightest color went on the eyelid. You were supposed to put darker shadow in the crease and some sort of highlighting shade directly under the brow. We were also required to manicure our nails every week, soaking our hands in soapy water and pushing back the cuticles before polishing them pale pink. Somewhere along the way, I was stranger and used to color each nail a different shade, using colors like green and blue and yellow and adding glittery stripes. That was still way back in the early 1970's though.
Anyway, over the years, I've gotten less and less into the whole makeup thing. I can't remember the last time I polished my fingernails, though I do know that I used fake nails a bunch of times a decade or so ago. (Hey, I won all those Lee press-on nails on Jeopardy! And it's really much easier to polish nails when you aren't wearing them.) So, all and all, it had been a long time since I'd shopped for this sort of stuff.
This desire to be all glamorous meant not just finding the first halfway acceptable stuff at the drugstore, though. You see, I've read a lot of the sort of British novels that are the literary equivalent of chick flicks. I'm probably way too old and uncool for it, but if I'm going to be all glamorous, I might as well do it in the style of a Sophie Kinsella character. The women reading this have probably figured it out already. I went to Sephora.
For those who have never been to one of these dens of iniquity, Sephora sells cosmetics that would never have names like "shell pink" or "sheer coral." The store is dedicated to the idea that vanity can't really be all that deadly a sin and, if it is, you might as well name the colors after deadlier sins. Their saleswomen are far less intrusive than those at department stores, too, so you can sample the testers all you want without getting much more than a question about whether you need any help. I had a very hard time making up my mind but I ended up with everything I needed. The blusher is from Nars in a color called "torrid." There's an eye shadow trio from Rocket City called "batteries not included." And another eye shadow from Urban Decay in "asphyxia," which is a sort of purple. I also got mascara, but that's just "black" because it's too squicky to try on mascara from a tester and I couldn't figure out what any of the other colors might be.
I spent over seventy bucks on makeup. Definitely, an "oh my G-d" experience. And I'm still thinking about going back to Nordstrom's and buying a tiara I tried on. All I can say is that I'm going to have to find a bunch of other reasons to play dress-up.
Copyright 2003 Miriam H. Nadel