Makeup doesn’t figure very largely in my life anymore; it never did, really, apart from the occasional fit I’d have for keeping my lids darkly rimmed with eyeliner during the “black is the new synonym for black” days. I did go through a period where I wore liquid foundation every day, but that was because I hadn’t found the drug that gave me my skin back yet. Now I usually dust on a light layer of sheer powder in the morning and leave it at that—I own a few other face-painting tools, but they’re getting kind of old at this point and whenever I use anything that’s lying around on the dressing table, as I had to to in order to take these pictures, I cringe a little bit. (I watched a lot of daytime TV when I was waiting for my work permit two years ago, and wouldn’t you know it but there was this one episode of the Tyra Banks show where they showed closeup slide images of mascara brushes and lip glosses crawling with intricately shaped bacteria; I’ve never quite gotten over it.)

I do remember being utterly fascinated with the stuff when I was a very little girl. I begged and begged to be allowed to have bright pink nail polish when I was about six or seven, and I’m pretty sure there was a phase, earlier than that, during which every time my mother left me alone for too long she’d have to come and find me in her bathroom, standing on top of the toilet with oily red marks all over my shamefaced cheeks, digging around in her cabinet. I used to open the tops of her lipstick containers and marvel at the strange shape her thoughtful kisses eroded them into, a steep mountain slope with a treacherously pointed peak. I remember particular cosmetic items I owned as a teenager: a deep burgundy lipstick, horribly misguided clear mascara. The funny thing is that makeup was never really about getting boys to notice you, and always somehow about becoming more of a girl. You could pick the kind of girl you wanted to be, though, and choose your color palette accordingly. There was at least that.

Someone in Utata said of this series of images that they seemed to reflect the string “makeup, makeup, hide myself.” In so far as they do, I’m glad that they don’t match my life—but I’m sure that for many other women that sequence of gestures is, in fact, rather commonplace.

What about you? If you wear makeup, how much of it do you put on? How often? How long does it take you? And what does it do for you?

Coming home on the train today I was standing in front of a woman with graying shoulder-length hair. She was wearing sunglasses, a tank top, and a pair of light green capri pants; she also had a shopping bag on the chair next to her, to whose handles was tied a shiny helium balloon bearing a birthday message. Upon cursory inspection, she seemed sane enough.

I’m reading a novel I quite like at the moment, and my iPod doesn’t have any new podcasts on it, so I pulled out my book. I looked, from the perspective of the lady, something rather like this:

When the train pulled into Charles/MGH, I stepped towards the doors to leave without thinking, realizing almost immediately that I still had one more stop to go. As I returned to my former position, I happened to glance down at the balloon that was swaying perilously close to my face, let my gaze brush gently over the balloon lady, and scratch my nose before sticking it back in my book. I can only surmise that it must have been one of the actions in that series which triggered the following speech, delivered in a bitterly aggrieved tone of voice by my fellow commuter to the general population of the car, over the course of the minute and a half it takes the train to get to Kendall.

“What do they want from me? Do they want to take my eyesight?

“Can you believe it? Standing directly in front of me like that reading a book. It’s so rude. ”

(Gesturing at me. Muttering. Pause.)

“I know what they’re doing. They’re trying to fuck me in public! That’s what it is. It’s gay marriage!”

(Pointing meaningfully at the people sitting across from her, as if inviting their scrutiny of my bad behavior. Squinting at me. Glaring when I peek down at her and smile. You should always smile at crazy balloon ladies.)

“Fine.”

(Pause.)

“Look at her! Standing there right in front of me as if she were my husband.”

(Practically growling now. I laugh a little, but keep my eyes on my book. Pause.)

“I know what they should do to you. They should fine you one million for every second you do this to me, stand there. They should put you in jail. Sexual harassment!”

(My stop arrives. I gaze at her through her sunglasses, wish her a nice day, and exit the train. A man standing by the doors catches my eye and grins: “Interesting.”)

“Have a rotten time in jail!”

This evening I walked down the train tracks near my house with the last of the film in my Polaroid and noticed this large rusty box of electrical wiring in the tall grass, the blocks of paint dripping down its wide double doors reminding me of a simple Basquiat. Something about it seemed strangely intimate to me, as if it were a sign of someone’s domestic existence there among the weeds: a closet from which they retrieve the day’s clothes after brushing their teeth amidst birdsong and spitting out the residue of dreams over the iron links that softly rumble to speak of an approaching train.

Also this evening, though not on that walk, I noticed a tattered black “His and Hers Hairdressing” sign I had never seen before, a kid who was being a jerk to her mom (two days ago I encountered the same kid being a jerk to her dad, so she at least possesses the redeeming qualities of consistency and fairness), and the fact that sparrows in real life move with a nervous, jerky air that is remarkably similar to the movements of CGI sparrows, and which if I am in the proper frame of mind makes them seem like fragile figments of my imagination. Fascinating.

Additionally, I noticed that saying the word “igloo” (as in “We could build our own igloo!”, in a conversation about making plans for the future) this way is not nearly as much fun as saying it this way, with a long eeeeee and a soft g, like a drunken Frenchman.

Finally, about 10 minutes ago I noticed that Haagen Daaz’s “Triple Chocolate” ice cream, comprising pieces of chocolate truffle buried in chocolate ice cream that has been shot through with chocolate fudge, is in fact too chocolatey. Who would have thought that was even possible? Such is the power of the aware mind.

…finish the sentence however you please, reader-mine.

Testing out photos on this new horse. Might need calibrating.

The bad news is, my beloved Powerbook looks like this:

A few months ago I damaged the LCD screen by picking up the laptop with my thumb and forefinger by the corner of the monitor (why yes, I do now know this is a hugely stupid idea), an act which reduced the effective screen size by a few centimeters. Tragically, idiocy is not covered under my 3-year AppleCare warranty, which in any case expired recently. The part of the screen that is white and shot through with colorful stripes has edged ever farther out since that initial trauma, growing slightly every time I move the lid of my laptop and forcing me to shrink my program windows into a smaller and smaller space. Today, when the UPS guy rang the doorbell and I closed the screen to move the computer off my lap, the damage exploded into the shape you see above.

The good news is, since it happened so slowly, I had time to plan for a backup. I had already decided I was going to need both a laptop and a desktop for my new working-from-home-and-traveling-a-lot life, and as a self-employed businesswoman computers are suddenly going to be a deductible expense. Since I wasn’t ready to buy my new iMac just yet, I thought I’d spend the summer working from an inexpensive refurbished Dell laptop—and that, my friends, is the machine I am typing this post in front of at this very moment. It was cheap, it appears to be relatively cheerful, and it arrived today just in time for me to make the transition. I really hope I love it, because it’s going to be coming with me on all my holidays from now on, allowing me to keep earning money while I watch mountain gorillas in the distance and wake up to sunrises in Zanzibar. That’s the plan, at least.

I’ll catch you later, lovelies. I’m busy managing the heartburn and stomach cramps that come along with getting reacquainted with Windows.

These working weekends (I have to write one full freelance article on each Saturday and Sunday of this month in order to make my June deadline) are making me worry a little about being able to successfully carve out personal time when I’m no longer earning my living by sitting an an office desk for eight hours every weekday, released to the blessed winds at precisely four p.m. every Friday ready to flit about like a sprite enjoying late brunches and the morning crossword puzzle. I’ve seen the future, Brother, and the future is Potentially Fabulous! with Time for Projects! and Infinite Flexibility! Unfortunately, making that potential into reality requires huge doses of Self Discipline and Organization, as well as a useful shot of Not Fucking Around Quite so Bloody Much All the Time. We will see.

The other thing I have realized about the future? Is that if I take one class a semester towards that second Bachelor’s I want to get (the one that will be of the Science variety), I will have my degree in…

oh…

about ten years. I don’t know, does this seem like a good plan to you? Maybe I can take two classes a semester, and simply give up sleeping a couple of nights a week. That seems doable. Honestly, people, what is the point of having goals? They only cause you pain.

Not to worry though. I have a scheme. It involves getting my degree, pulling a wormhole out of the quantum foam, enlarging it so its mouth is big enough for me to fit through, stabilizing it with a tremendously powerful electric field so it doesn’t collapse into a black hole, building a spaceship that travels at very close to the speed of light, putting one of the wormhole portals on the ship, sending it rocketing off for 20 years, having it come back to Earth in a location that is very close to the other wormhole portal, and then using my time tunnel to go back to ten years ago with all the knowledge I now have from my BS.

Oh, yeah. It’s gonna be so sweet.

We’re going to Costa Rica! We just made a deposit on a volunteer vacation; we’ll be spending two weeks helping out at an iguana rescue and breeding center on a reservation near Puerto Viejo. The summer is already going to be kind of crazy with various travels within the country, but we decided we really needed to take advantage of the relatively relaxed (if you don’t count packing to move a thousand miles) time off we’re both going to have. We’re leaving in late July.

Man.

:-)