ashes, dust...and clinique

I had a half-psychotic twitch monster on my lap at church this afternoon. I was doing everything I could to pay attention to the priest's Ash Wednesday sermon as he was floating concepts like repentance and sacrifice at us like godly little birdies flitting out to lucky revelers.

I'm sure other parishioners were busy making self-sacrificial plans for the next 40 days like good Episcopalians.

My concentration had been shot the moment I shlepped my three youngest through the doors by the backs of their coats and saw the church nursery dark and abandoned like the tomb on day five.  I had to shove the three amigos into a pew with those pitiful excuses for "kid's bags" that hold nothing more than old office scratch paper and broken colored pencils with no lead.

Thanks, guys. That really helps keep them occupied after the first "All of this stuff is broken!" wail.

So instead of thinking Ash-y thoughts about what good I could put back in the world, I did my best and pretty much spent the service pondering the atrocious breakout on my forehead.

Where had it come from? Was it noticeable? Did anyone else find it odd that I was plum in the middle of being 35 and I still broke out like a kid? Would the ashes make the red less noticeable? More noticeable?

Then I got in the spirit of the day and thought about the priest.

Did he hesitate whenever a forehead appeared in front of him with a comedone the size of his face? What was the protocol? Ashes to the right of the whitehead? To the left? Man up and run your ash-heavy thumb right across the damn thing and pretend you don't notice?

Believe me, I notice things like that.

Back when I first stepped foot off the boat in Alaska (it's true, you take a ferry most times), I had a brand new MFA under my belt and zero employers interested in hiring me. It was fantastic. So much so that when Nordstrom called about an off-chance online application I'd submitted, I jumped at the chance to work at their Clinique counter.

They gave me some color cards, a ridiculous lab coat, a few free makeup samples to obsess over at home and an hourly sales goal to make before setting me free to torment the downstairs shoppers.

I wasn't a terrible consultant and within a month I'd beaten all the girls at my counter and had even put to shame a couple of the coiffed, stick-up-their-arse Lancome girls. (Take that, $80 serum freaks!)

Mostly I sold gallons of that atrocious yellow moisturizer that I wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole these days (hello, mineral oil!) and bars upon bars of that awful soap that dried up in the little dish the moment you took it out of the plastic.

But another part of my job was zeee actual applying of zeee makeup. Like, on the public's face.

In my mind, beauty queens and Rocky Horror Picture Show actors would be lining up for a spot in my chair, like they did at the Mac counter.

The best I ever got was a couple prom court nominees but that was only because Lancome and Mac were double booked and nobody wanted to go to the Estee Lauder counter because it smelled bad (awful, awful ancient lady perfumes).

But mostly I dealt with teenagers and really old women with lots of money and time on their hands. The teenagers wanted cover up for their ravaged skin and there was nothing short of compound joint that would help them at that point. Gobs of concealer really only highlighted the acne worse, but they weren't interested in hearing about the whole "wash your face" or at the very least "zip this toner across your forehead before bed."

The other girls were pros and would dab the product all over the erupted skin using the sensitive skin on their fingertips.

dab dab dab...swipe.

 I made the manager buy me those extra-long medical swabs because the more distance between me and a weeping white head, the better. I did my best.

poke poke poke...switch. grimace. repeat.

If the young ones were hormonal, the older ones were bitter and demanding of every single serum, cream, and sandblaster I could fit on the counter.

"Make me younger," they'd demand.

Without the Tardis nearby, there wasn't much I could do but make them look extra greasy and shiny with 19 layers of anti-aging product applied by kitchen sponge.

Other people's faces aren't my thing.

My career at the makeup counter was short lived and as far as I'm concerned, removed me from all priestly aspirations from that day forward.

And as for my priest?

Pure professional. Straight down the middle without a wince or a shudder.





this is part of "forty stories." a fun little lent challenge where i show up and write a story (of any nature, i guess) on internet paper. 

shame.

"We think sometimes that poverty is only being hungry, naked and homeless. The poverty of being unwanted, unloved and uncared for is the greatest poverty. We must start in our own homes to remedy this kind of poverty." (Mother Theresa)

i hate my facebook feed lately and i'm pretty sure it's a sentiment a lot of folks feel.

 i've seen friend after friend threaten to drop people who insist on spouting their politics. gay, anti-gay, abortion, anti-abortion, gun, anti-gun. obamacare, anti-obamacare.

 it's all over the place and mostly i just zip past it and pay people's opinions no mind. i don't care what you support and what you don't. honestly. it takes all sorts of folks to make the world go round and i believe that with all my heart.

but lately there's a trend that flames poor people. accuses them of all sorts of things. drug abuse. fraud. laziness. theft. being a scourge on society.

because, you know...

social welfare recipients couldn't possibly hold down jobs. they don't give of themselves. they don't help others. they don't contribute to their neighborhoods. they're pariahs. scum. absolutely deserving of our social network scorn.

they take and they take and they take while the rest of  US work hard and get our pockets pilfered by "big brother" so they can pay society's useless to remain idle.

i'm here to say that it's absolute bullshit and just another dirty form of discrimination and ignorance.

one of my favorite bloggers (who focuses on paying off debt and frugality) posted an article about how absurd our american poverty level is because people who qualify have things like air conditioners in their apartments and a color television in their home. commenters were quick to jump in an rail about how these fake poor probably had the gall to have kids and own an xbox. they probably bought their kids new shoes a few times a year. they dared have a cell phone.

i commented about how lovely
the view must look way up on those high horses and it all snowballed from there. virtriol. name calling (how i became a commie-liberal scum sucker  in the span of 15 minutes is still a bit of a blur, but i'm piecing it together.) i'm not interested in ever reading her thoughts ever again.

these piece of shit memes keep showing up over and over and it breaks my heart. i'm not sure whatever happened to the "therefore by the grace of god go i..." but it seems like a trendy thing to do to cast shame on others from the safety behind a keyboard.

people post these and add their own "lol" or "so true" and laugh. because they've spent a lot of time with the poor, haven't they? they know that every person who gets assistance smokes weed and buys alcohol with the money they do earn.

 they themselves have never ever had to take a pell grant or an education grant to get back into the work force or used  unemployment, have they?

i don't care what your politics are. i swear. i think we all have a brain in our head and it's our job to use it to form our own, independent opinions.

i believe that if you don't like somthing about policy, then you get off your ass and you vote and you change it.

please, do this and i will give you my undying support (even if we don't agree) because you are working toward something positive and forward.

but if your idea of change is throwing up a poorly-illustrated bit of shame toward a person you've never met, well...

shame on you.

review: ripper street season 2 episode 2

i'm at flickering myth writing about this week's ripper street episode. poor elephant man... read it here: monsters and freaks

review: vikings season 2 premiere

i'm over at flickering myth writing about how poor lagertha basically opened the season with a big fat bust. check it out here: no fury like a lagertha scorned

review: ripper street season 2 premiere

i am spending these next few months reviewing and recapping a few of my favorite shows over at flickering myth. i start out with recapping the premiere of season two of ripper street. read it here: take heed coppers, there's a new opiate in town

a band, a book, and february

i get so tired of starting every other post with something along the lines of "i'm so terrible at blogging lately."

but, well, i am.

i've been busy, i suppose. focused? eyes on the prize(s)? overwhelmed? lazy as hell?

all of the above.

the hooligans
well, the boys had valentine's day parties this week. boo was underwhelmed to say the least and kept begging me to take pick him up early when we dropped him off that morning. (he's in pre-k, folks. he's in that classroom three hours, tops...) dom came home with a bag of candy and his first crush. don't tell him i told you, but her name is kimberly. she's the smartest girl in class. and a brunette. i think she likes "my little pony" as well and that's probably what sealed the deal.

the girls, well...all i can say is there's only one belt and they're determined to fight to the death for the title. riley is a hair puller and kenna is a gut puncher. i'm never bored.

the man
i love him. i do. i'm a lucky girl. he and some friends went to a local "haunt" searching for some paranormal apparitions. turns out the bridge they checked out was like katy's own haunted disneyland complete with carloads of goofy paranormal investigators driving up and down. it's really a funny story to hear him tell it and i think it's so cool they're these big bad MMA dudes trying to coax ghosties out of the woods. conversations around our house are never lame.

what i'm working on

i'm doing my darndest to finish the rest of a story about a girl and ghosts (and a boy and some animal spirits on a reservation). i'm very nearly there and it's for a huge contest macmillian is putting together in april. i needed a cover for preliminaries and i'll share it with you. i know if this story ever gets picked up, the covers change and so do the titles, but seriously...the cover is so motivating. maybe i'll spill more beans about july's story as i go. she's so fun to write about and it's my first attempt to write the first person POV. i hate first person, but when i read it with other books, i get so drawn into the story, especially when its YA. i seem to write first person faster, too...i just miss being able to give the glimpse into the other protag's vantage. this one-camera angle is tough...

what i'm listening to
omg. obsession time.

 i haven't gotten this girly in the knee socks since i saw christian slater in "heathers" the first time all those years ago. i nearly pulled all my hair out with his turn as the shmexy will scarlet in the costner version of "robin hood: prince of thieves". anyway, i needed music to write "ghosts of july" to and stumbled up on the song "chocolate" by the 1975 and i fell instantly in love with the band and the man, matt healey. so much that i can't get his face out of my head when i'm writing my character, the teenage heartbreaker renn. so, there's that. poor renn, forever linked to an adorable little british rocker. i've pretty much downloaded all of their songs now much to my husband's major eyeball rolling and its' all i listen to when i write. i'm done with the fangirl thing for now, i promise. but you should listen to them. start with their song CHOCOLATE and go from there. good luck not dying from adorable british boy punk cuteness.

what i have been reading
i picked up myra mcentire's "Hourglass" (the first in a trilogy) on a twitter-suggested whim and was blown outta the water. holy crapola. highly recommended. for some reason, i've gotten sucked into two time-traveling trilogies now and for the life of me i can't explain how that happened. i've never been much of a fan of time travel and no matter how hard i try, i can't really get into dr. who and the tardis and all that space/time continuum. but, again...never say never. next thing i know i'm obsessed with a punk band from manchester and reading a YA time travel trilogy that keeps me away way too late.

here's hoping i don't wait until june to check in again... :)

hello, hooligans: dance party violence

hello, hooligans:

we were having a random dance party last night. it happens every now and then when we're trying to survive the 4 p.m.-to-bedtime stretch I call "hell."

it was a good song, from what i can remember. kenna was jumping around like mad, clapping and yanking the dog's tail. riley was standing on my legs, holding my hands for balance and sort of half jumping off, half butt-dropping like her name was miley cyrus.

the she did something awful.

she hauled off and hit me square in the nose.  out of nowhere.

my eyes stung and it was such a hard hit that my initial instinct was to smack back out of self defense. but i didn't.

and i think there's a life lesson in there somewhere.

sometimes, when you're raising kids they have a random misfire and hit you so hard (literally and figuratively) that you rethink your life choices. (it passes.)

maybe he world in general is a little like that, too. random hits so hard it makes your eyes water and your language crusty.

anyway, the only thing you can do is get back to the dancing and keep a watchful eye on the violent ones.

fool me once...

part advice column to my kids, part snapshot into what it's like when the inmates run the asylum. "a pack of hooligans" is often how i introduce my kids to strangers. 

Art School in Session (Lots of Faces in One Week)

I've spent so much time taking writing classes and attending writing conferences that I forget that I used to love art nearly as much as I loved writing.

I stumbled across Carla Sonheim's website by chance and saw that she hosted regular online classes that use a blog, Flikr, and videos and when I saw the average price (for the week-longs) was about $35, I couldn't help myself. My biggest problem was deciding which one to start with.

Dom and I decided we wanted to start with the Faces 101 (as in, 101 different faces in a week) because it was a live class with feedback from Carla.

Today was day one and we dabbled with our watercolors and blobs and created faces.

Here are a couple of mine:

 Henry. 

I was channeling a little Led Zeppelin with this one. I wanted to make him older but couldn't quite pull it off. Still, I dig his goatee.

Kit.

Doesn't she look like Kenna a wee bit? I love the purple hair and it just so happened my hair was pulled into a long braid today, too. Hooray for purple braids.

Georgette.

I read a lot of Jane Austen and Georgette Heyer. What can I say? Guilty.

Milton.

I've never known a Milton in real life, but I'd sure like to. I bet he'd look like this guy and tell bawdy jokes and put skim milk in his coffee. Good ol' Milt.

More later in the week!

...happy...happy...happy...

stuff of life: toy portraiture

Do you ever wonder about the secret life of toys?

I spend about two-thirds of my days picking up, sorting, tossing, picking up,sorting, and tossing the amassed mountain of toys our kids have and I often wonder what their backstory is.

I took my new camera out for a testride today and I couldn't get my kids to sit still for a some pictures for the life of me. But I needed the practice, so I dumped out every figurine I could find and I took portraits of them. They were more than happy to tell me their woes.

toy portraits, session one
january 24, 2014

1. Randall dreams about being a concert pianist and growing organic turnips. But mostly he hates having his ears chewed on by the baby.

2. Gertie's big moment, her very own portrait, was ruined by Construction Carl's immature photobomb.

3. After a decade together, Caillou and Leo find themselves in couple's therapy.

4. Marine Corps Moe (the dollar store's answer to GI Joe) really loves a good cup of coffee in the morning. And some guerilla urban warfare for lunch.

5. Bernard lost his pride in that last battle. He lost his arm in Tijuana a few years back while on leave.

6. Saul and Paul never could see eye-to-eye.

7. Dusty remembers the good old days when pirating was considered an honest trade. He'd give all the legos in Houston to be chasing the fair winds again.

A New Year, an Old Couch

I'm sure I had every intent to write between my last post (mid-November) and today. Truly.

But, see, I had this goal last year to write more posts than my previous annual record (I wrote 70 posts in 2009). So on November 18, I hit post #100 and I thought that was a fantastic number. And when life got busy and I realized there'd be no way to hit 150 or 125 or some other monumental number, I figured a break from both Facebook and the blog would be ok. Just to preserve such a monumental number like 100.

Then there's the fact that my camera jumped off the kitchen counter to the tiled floor last month. That was a pretty awful experience.

Last night we rang in the new year on our couch, hedging bets on whether Jenny McCarthy would get her midnight smooch with my favorite former New Kid. (Donnie. What can I say? I was never a Jordan sort of girl and Joey always looked too young. Danny looked like a caveman and Jonathon just wasn't my type. Donnie it was.)

Somewhere around 11:15, when the east coast had rung in 2014, we went to bed like a couple of old farts.

That's just who we are right now and I'm pretty ok with it.

2014 will pick up speed, I'm sure of it.

I had every plan to write a thoughtful, insightful post, but as I type, my toddler is on our kitchen table launching the four-year old's legos in every direction. He's screaming. She's laughing. And I'm zoned out. I'm pretty sure that sums up much of 2013...where we balanced precariously between moments of awesome (state parks, birthdays, the zoo) and pure junk (broken water pumps, bounced checks, rejection letters).

I don't expect much else out of life, I guess and that's enough for me!

Here's hoping you rang in the new year in style and wishing you love and health in the new year!

...happy, happy...