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Sunday, May 22, 2011

Honey, Please.

The slippery cosmetic slope has completely engulfed me. Earlier this week, I managed to drive myself all the way to the fanciest mall in Pittsburgh (it was a Nordstrom and EVERYTHING). Normally, I have no problem driving myself anywhere that I need to go, but for some reason, I had this insane mental block about going to this place that is exceedingly easy to get to. After a bit of self-talk, I got in the car and drove myself there, which was a great accomplishment in the face of my own self-defeatism (is that a word? well, it is now).

I was going there originally to visit the L.L. Bean store (because I am a ninety year old retiree) and see if they carried Plus Sizes at the retail level. Of course they didn't. While L.L. Bean does have quite a selection of merchandise online, free shipping and the ability to return to the store, I'm kind of miffed that it doesn't provide at least a smattering of the clothes that are available online. Without getting too political about fat rights, it's kind of insulting that fat women are forced into their homes and onto their soulless computers to be able to find clothes to wear. That is, if it's beyond anything made by Just My Size, Lane Bryant and Alfred Dunner. Actually it's not kind of insulting, it's just insulting. I guess I should just be happy that I'm not openly beat in the street, instead of just being verbally abused openly in the street. It's cool, though, I guess this is how white people get to know what it's like to be judged and persecuted based solely upon your appearance. Dr. House said it best,


"See, skinny socially privileged white people get to draw this neat little circle, and everyone inside the circle is normal, anyone outside the circle should be beaten, broken and reset so they can be brought into the circle. Failing that, they should be institutionalized or worse, pitied."


This was supposed to be a post about lip gloss.

I went to Sephora and tried on Clinique's "Black Honey," again. I've been against lip gloss as a genre for quite some time, because it is often sticky and glassy with that greasy looking smear that makes me think of street-walkers and drag queens (not that they're bad people. I just don't want to have lips like theirs). Gina, who had come to the fancy mall to hang out for a bit and get a really nice dress from Talbot's, finally convinced me that I needed to purchase this item that actually lives up to the claim of looking good on everyone.

Since my makeup revolution, I've gotten several compliments on my choices and I'm feeling better than ever about my appearance with our without makeup, clothes from L.L. Bean, or the ability to shop in a store like a human being. Yay for settling for second-best!

Before going to work at the Candle Shoppe yesterday, Gina and I were having coffee and chatting and three middle-aged women walked by looking dumpy: like the portrait of three women that had given up and just accepted the societal role that had been thrust upon them by their country, their spouses and their time. I immediately thought of the line in John (nee Johnny Cougar) Mellancamp's "Pink Houses."

There's a black Man
With a black cat
Livin' in a black neighborhood.
He's got an interstate runnin' through his front yard
You know he thinks he's got it so good

Then she brought up people's inability to understand the irony of Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the USA," when they blather on and on about patriotism in America.

Born down in a dead man's town
The first kick I took was when I hit the ground
You end up like a dog that's been beat too much
'Til you spend half your life just covering up

[chorus:]
Born in the U.S.A.
Born in the U.S.A.
Born in the U.S.A.
Born in the U.S.A.

I got in a little hometown jam
And so they put a rifle in my hands
Sent me off to Vietnam
To go and kill the yellow man

[chorus]

Come back home to the refinery
Hiring man says "Son if it was up to me"
I go down to see the V.A. man
He said "Son don't you understand"

[chorus]

I had a buddy at Khe Sahn
Fighting off the Viet Cong
They're still there, he's all gone
He had a little girl in Saigon
I got a picture of him in her arms

Down in the shadow of the penitentiary
Out by the gas fires of the refinery
I'm ten years down the road
Nowhere to run, ain't got nowhere to go

I'm a long gone Daddy in the U.S.A.
Born in the U.S.A.
I'm a cool rocking Daddy in the U.S.A.
Born in the U.S.A.


When did we settle for this? I don't remember signing anything.
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1 comment:

  1. I could almost hear and see the Junly 4th Community Fireworks show to Bruce's misunderstood song.

    ReplyDelete