If there has been a worse beauty product than nail polish strips in the past 25 years, I would be amazed. Holy crap - glad I spent only eBay price (under $5 for a dual package) rather than the NINE BUCKS the drugstores want to charge for these failures.
(Ed. to add - Oh good! They're also a gooey pain in the butt to remove. Perfect.)
Showing posts with label "health and beauty" (har). Show all posts
Showing posts with label "health and beauty" (har). Show all posts
Sunday, August 26, 2012
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
"Next to Godliness" Came Later
Thanks to the excessively charming Day Al Mohamad, I've been cruelly tempted into doing exactly that sort of thing I adore to do - going on about some silly subject of which I have a bit of knowledge and on which I have a deeper perspective than the day-to-day. Following on the heels of Immaculate Misconception, let's look at some of the actual methods human beings have used over time to keep clean. Thanks to the knowledge I've gained, I'll disclaim at the top that most of my own knowledge is unfortunately Western-centric, and almost entirely Euro-centric, in fact. My interest in American history has never been lively, and I admittedly considered it a follow-up to those things which did appeal to me (Arthuriana, Roman, and European/British history), so understand that everything I say is informed in this context, more or less. Any attempt to display diversification in my approach to humanity may be doomed to failure, so please forgive me when I try, and forgive that trying for being limited.
The oldest personal hygiene products humans have ever used - might be what we consider today to be dirt.
Perhaps the earliest cleaning agent (as opposed to medium - which tends oftenest to be water) was sand. Even today, we know the phrase "scoured by sand", and scouring is one heck of a means of cleaning. Sand has been used for everything from washing hair to clothes to pots and pans, and the pot-and-pan application is hardly extinct. Clay and mud, too, have always held a place in, particular to the purposes of this post and its predecessor, personal hygeine. Clay is still used in hairdressing, and various silts, muds, and clays continue to hold quite the hallowed place in spa treatments and the like. Clay-fine mud makes a remarkable moisturizer - and, in times and places other than the suburban United States, quite the sunscreen as well. Ask any pig who's had its melanin bred away why it wallows and "dirties" up that pink hide.
Clay is a fixative and a moisturizer, a paint and hair coloring, a body-builder in hair under management - and, above all, a matrix for sculpture. The beauty in what the ignorant might call "dirt" goes back by far longer than the history of soap (whose earliest recipes consisted of oils and ashes - another component we today might call "dirt" as well). It also spreads farther across the world than the imagined habitation of Tarzan the Ape Man, and is used across more of the body than many Westerners even feel it is polite to remember we own.
Self-beautification with things some of us narrowly define as "dirt" is bold, exuberantly symbolic, powerfully striking - and all done with materials many of us have forgotten, or prefer not to remember, or think is just something to wash away. It is artistry with earth itself.
Of course - in many places, especially warmer ones, depilation held more prominence than hairdressing. Shaving and plucking came along early, and have stuck with us just as long as mud masks and cleansing. It is said Caesar himself (did you know his name basically means "good hair"? ironic, as he was famously bald in middle age) had all his body hair plucked. Egyptians, particularly of higher rank, shaved their heads - male and female - and many of those hairstyles we see in relief sculptures were meticulously crafted wigs. The art of wigmaking was highly prized in many of the pharaonic eras, and hygeine was carried even farther with the use of wax perfume cones, balanced on top of the head, to melt down over the neck and body, moisturizing and scenting (particularly nobility and largely women) through the heat of a long Egyptian day and langorous evening.
Once we got past scouring with sand, and the early soap formulations, we began grooming ourselves with a will. Combs came first, but we have had brushes for almost every purpose - cleaning of ourselves, very small parts of ourselves, and our beloved self-decorating clothing, domiciles, and even animals for a long time as well. Combs were innovated by being carved from ivory, from sandalwood, and hairdressing - an activity almost certainly born out of the necessity of de-lousing and de-tangling - grew, as a social activity, to become part of social presentation.
Pliny was aware of soap, but not its application to a person's skin - that, we find discussed in Latin, as an occurrence among those filthy Barbarians, the CELTS, and in Gaul. Yes, ladies and germs, the Romans were ignorant of this method of bathing until well after Caesar died. The famous Galen extolled German soap as the best, no less.
Not everybody was into the soap bag - and soap wasn't the only game in town by a long shot. Hit up Northern Europe and you find saunas. Similar to the Roman bathing ritual (a multi-process event, and no small one), the skin was treated to heat and cool. The Romans went from cool and dry to ever-warmer rooms. The Scandinavians moved from the heat of the sauna ... and closed up their pores with - well, the cold with which most of those environs were so abundantly endowed. Sound "skin science", that, actually - heat it up, open the pores, sweat out whatever's icky, then rinse it all off and finish the process with a good, tight seal. Probably did wonders for medieval acne.
Clovis I, in "The Ax and the Vase" spends rather a lot of time in grooming (well, or in being groomed - in certain now-cut chapters, first by his mother - and in later periods, by slaves of the body). He was one of the Long Haired kings, reges criniti, a line of Frankish rulers whose charisma and power were distinctively wrapped up in their long hair. (I swear, this is not why I wrote about Clovis ... !) Archaeology tells us that hairdressing even going back as the bronze age in Britain could be pretty rich stuff - clips and bindings of gold, copper, and braiding and care were displayed in many northern and Celtic tribes. The myth of the filthy Viking or Migration Period hordes is one with staying power, but not one with actual legs to stand on.
Part of the issue I have with the "everyone was dirty until 1900" theory is this: at no time in history, ever, in any context or aspect of our humanity, has "everyone" been ANY one thing. Human beings cover, if it possible to even conceive it, a vastly wider and more myriad spectrum than the straight line model I referred to in Immaculate Misconception between "clean" and "dirty". Even that spectrum is wrongly considered as a straight line, because nothing is so easy to quantify. The array, then, of all those aspects of dress, bathing, self-decoration, habitation, diet, elimination, animal husbandry and proximity, remediation of human waste (where we put it and how), and all those things which feed into the modern, limited, myopic definition of "clean" would be impossible to place on a single graded line, with one state at one end, another at the other, and all possibilities neatly aligned in between.
There have ALWAYS been people who, through slovenliness, ill health, inability, ignorance, or the progression of age, smelled or appeared offensive to other people. There have ALWAYS been those of more privilege or fastidiousness, who lacked certain obviously "dirty" qualities. And there are always days most of us fall more toward one end of the stinky-toleration level or the other. There has never - ever - been a period in history during which every living human being could automatically be ranked as filthy - even by modern standards, frankly - and certainly not all at one level. If I encountered a 14th-century beggar stricken with, but not yet dead of, the plague, I imagine the scent would be something. But if I met her cousin, say maybe The Wife of Bath, I'd be able to tell a distinct difference - even if the WoB still seemed stinky by my standards.
The question is, though - just how stinky were people, really?
Americans like to sneer about Europeans (see also: the French) who don't shave (horrors!) and who waft either garlic or a bit of personal musk, and judge them "dirty". Imagine what our bodies would smell like to essentially everyone in history, though, who ever lived before current American standards became so dominant (for us). Chemical perfumes, oddly lotioned skin, dyes and even clothing spun from plastic and unnatural fiber. We would not smell like human beings - and, frankly, we probably wouldn't smell exceptionally good. Most of the scents we take for granted are pretty cheap, and an awful lot of them (try Monday morning in any corporate high-rise elevator) are ovewhelming. Many of us get actual headaches from the colognes and body splashes so many modern "civilized" humans ladle on indiscriminately.
Try parading a smoker, who's tried to cover up that smell with perfume, in front of an ancient peasant, and see whether they don't curl up their nose in horror.
Or a person devoid of their own oils and sweat, marinated in the latest celebrity signature scent - not smelling like a *person* at all - and see if this doesn't cause outright suspicion, if not even hostility.
The relativity we work from, formulating "dirty Barbarians" in the modern mind, ironically, was largely born of that very period many of us sneer about now, the Victorian era (you know I'd get to "cleanliness is next to Godliness" sooner or later, right?).
Even better, the fear of bathing we presume was symptomatic of a thousand years of European peasantry was in fact itself born late. People across the continent and the British Isles were in fact well acquainted with bathing, even if not in full-body-immersion style, but definitely in that manner, for centuries, if not millennia, before The Black Plague. The medical establishment of the time attempted study of this scourge, but, oddly enough, it was not treated in the way a modern disease is, and this is key to the understanding of the way the culture changed, even as the population was devastated by death. By the time one had symptoms of Plague - it was almost certainly a death sentence. Treatment was essentially ... cruelly ... not worth it.
It was, perhaps ironically, the Church who began to advise its flock in the means to prevent contraction of the disease, and bathing was a clear casualty in this period. In 1348, even common folk expected to bathe once a week, often by full-body-immersion, in the way we'd recognize as "bathing" today. This practice involved both exposure to cold and wet, but also nudity, and these things took on a relative menace, in a time when the friend you spoke with just this morning appearing by evening as a corpse. Everything did.
And so, we found workarounds, and even that time-honored "shortcut" (or entirety of personal ablution, as the case really can be, and not just in post-Plauge Europe), the Whore's Bath, sometimes saw its own short-cutting. (The WB is the standing cleansing, not necessarily even in a state of complete undress, in which we spot clean the ampits and groin. Foot washing has always held a special and symbolic place in the human heart, but as hygeine goes, it's less vital in the role of stink-control than those areas with the most glands.)
So modernity has this constructed memory, of Elizabethans or the denizens of Versailles, decked out in possibly filthy Bitchin' Velvets wafting around oranges jammed full of cloves, pouring perfume down their necks or decolletage, and powdering like mad over every possible other sin.
I would hardly venture to say NOBODY practiced these cosmetic half-truths. I know what the bodkin was for (*).
But it might just be some of them did long not to itch so much, or couldn't stand the smell of the pomanders themselves, or just had a different standard, and perhaps tried to prevent their wigs becoming home in the first place for the vermin they had to kill with jeweled scimitars in the second place (*get the functional picture, then?). It might be that the lesser the finery, the easier to wash - and same for the woman or man as well. Some of the heaviest powder-ers died of lead poisoning, anyway.
Eventually, we came to the place where any evidence of human biology, at least the olfactory kind (see Well Cut Through the Body for reference to wardrobe and the evidence of sexual enhancement, or Ancient Knickers for the possibility of early alluring lingerie), as morally outrageous. With this, sadly, has come both a judgmentalism of any culture not adhering to what may or may not really be all that healthy a "civilized" obsession - and of the past, which we have presumed out of hand to be entirely composed of filth and dirt.
It makes me want to shop for German soap.
And it makes me feel dirty, the baggage - and considerable moralism, not to mention cultural elitism - we've attached to the simple method of personal ablution. I think it stinks.
But I do love the fresh scent of sandalwood, too.
The oldest personal hygiene products humans have ever used - might be what we consider today to be dirt.
Perhaps the earliest cleaning agent (as opposed to medium - which tends oftenest to be water) was sand. Even today, we know the phrase "scoured by sand", and scouring is one heck of a means of cleaning. Sand has been used for everything from washing hair to clothes to pots and pans, and the pot-and-pan application is hardly extinct. Clay and mud, too, have always held a place in, particular to the purposes of this post and its predecessor, personal hygeine. Clay is still used in hairdressing, and various silts, muds, and clays continue to hold quite the hallowed place in spa treatments and the like. Clay-fine mud makes a remarkable moisturizer - and, in times and places other than the suburban United States, quite the sunscreen as well. Ask any pig who's had its melanin bred away why it wallows and "dirties" up that pink hide.
Clay is a fixative and a moisturizer, a paint and hair coloring, a body-builder in hair under management - and, above all, a matrix for sculpture. The beauty in what the ignorant might call "dirt" goes back by far longer than the history of soap (whose earliest recipes consisted of oils and ashes - another component we today might call "dirt" as well). It also spreads farther across the world than the imagined habitation of Tarzan the Ape Man, and is used across more of the body than many Westerners even feel it is polite to remember we own.
Self-beautification with things some of us narrowly define as "dirt" is bold, exuberantly symbolic, powerfully striking - and all done with materials many of us have forgotten, or prefer not to remember, or think is just something to wash away. It is artistry with earth itself.
Of course - in many places, especially warmer ones, depilation held more prominence than hairdressing. Shaving and plucking came along early, and have stuck with us just as long as mud masks and cleansing. It is said Caesar himself (did you know his name basically means "good hair"? ironic, as he was famously bald in middle age) had all his body hair plucked. Egyptians, particularly of higher rank, shaved their heads - male and female - and many of those hairstyles we see in relief sculptures were meticulously crafted wigs. The art of wigmaking was highly prized in many of the pharaonic eras, and hygeine was carried even farther with the use of wax perfume cones, balanced on top of the head, to melt down over the neck and body, moisturizing and scenting (particularly nobility and largely women) through the heat of a long Egyptian day and langorous evening.
Once we got past scouring with sand, and the early soap formulations, we began grooming ourselves with a will. Combs came first, but we have had brushes for almost every purpose - cleaning of ourselves, very small parts of ourselves, and our beloved self-decorating clothing, domiciles, and even animals for a long time as well. Combs were innovated by being carved from ivory, from sandalwood, and hairdressing - an activity almost certainly born out of the necessity of de-lousing and de-tangling - grew, as a social activity, to become part of social presentation.
Pliny was aware of soap, but not its application to a person's skin - that, we find discussed in Latin, as an occurrence among those filthy Barbarians, the CELTS, and in Gaul. Yes, ladies and germs, the Romans were ignorant of this method of bathing until well after Caesar died. The famous Galen extolled German soap as the best, no less.
Not everybody was into the soap bag - and soap wasn't the only game in town by a long shot. Hit up Northern Europe and you find saunas. Similar to the Roman bathing ritual (a multi-process event, and no small one), the skin was treated to heat and cool. The Romans went from cool and dry to ever-warmer rooms. The Scandinavians moved from the heat of the sauna ... and closed up their pores with - well, the cold with which most of those environs were so abundantly endowed. Sound "skin science", that, actually - heat it up, open the pores, sweat out whatever's icky, then rinse it all off and finish the process with a good, tight seal. Probably did wonders for medieval acne.
Clovis I, in "The Ax and the Vase" spends rather a lot of time in grooming (well, or in being groomed - in certain now-cut chapters, first by his mother - and in later periods, by slaves of the body). He was one of the Long Haired kings, reges criniti, a line of Frankish rulers whose charisma and power were distinctively wrapped up in their long hair. (I swear, this is not why I wrote about Clovis ... !) Archaeology tells us that hairdressing even going back as the bronze age in Britain could be pretty rich stuff - clips and bindings of gold, copper, and braiding and care were displayed in many northern and Celtic tribes. The myth of the filthy Viking or Migration Period hordes is one with staying power, but not one with actual legs to stand on.
Part of the issue I have with the "everyone was dirty until 1900" theory is this: at no time in history, ever, in any context or aspect of our humanity, has "everyone" been ANY one thing. Human beings cover, if it possible to even conceive it, a vastly wider and more myriad spectrum than the straight line model I referred to in Immaculate Misconception between "clean" and "dirty". Even that spectrum is wrongly considered as a straight line, because nothing is so easy to quantify. The array, then, of all those aspects of dress, bathing, self-decoration, habitation, diet, elimination, animal husbandry and proximity, remediation of human waste (where we put it and how), and all those things which feed into the modern, limited, myopic definition of "clean" would be impossible to place on a single graded line, with one state at one end, another at the other, and all possibilities neatly aligned in between.
There have ALWAYS been people who, through slovenliness, ill health, inability, ignorance, or the progression of age, smelled or appeared offensive to other people. There have ALWAYS been those of more privilege or fastidiousness, who lacked certain obviously "dirty" qualities. And there are always days most of us fall more toward one end of the stinky-toleration level or the other. There has never - ever - been a period in history during which every living human being could automatically be ranked as filthy - even by modern standards, frankly - and certainly not all at one level. If I encountered a 14th-century beggar stricken with, but not yet dead of, the plague, I imagine the scent would be something. But if I met her cousin, say maybe The Wife of Bath, I'd be able to tell a distinct difference - even if the WoB still seemed stinky by my standards.
The question is, though - just how stinky were people, really?
Americans like to sneer about Europeans (see also: the French) who don't shave (horrors!) and who waft either garlic or a bit of personal musk, and judge them "dirty". Imagine what our bodies would smell like to essentially everyone in history, though, who ever lived before current American standards became so dominant (for us). Chemical perfumes, oddly lotioned skin, dyes and even clothing spun from plastic and unnatural fiber. We would not smell like human beings - and, frankly, we probably wouldn't smell exceptionally good. Most of the scents we take for granted are pretty cheap, and an awful lot of them (try Monday morning in any corporate high-rise elevator) are ovewhelming. Many of us get actual headaches from the colognes and body splashes so many modern "civilized" humans ladle on indiscriminately.
Try parading a smoker, who's tried to cover up that smell with perfume, in front of an ancient peasant, and see whether they don't curl up their nose in horror.
Or a person devoid of their own oils and sweat, marinated in the latest celebrity signature scent - not smelling like a *person* at all - and see if this doesn't cause outright suspicion, if not even hostility.
The relativity we work from, formulating "dirty Barbarians" in the modern mind, ironically, was largely born of that very period many of us sneer about now, the Victorian era (you know I'd get to "cleanliness is next to Godliness" sooner or later, right?).
Even better, the fear of bathing we presume was symptomatic of a thousand years of European peasantry was in fact itself born late. People across the continent and the British Isles were in fact well acquainted with bathing, even if not in full-body-immersion style, but definitely in that manner, for centuries, if not millennia, before The Black Plague. The medical establishment of the time attempted study of this scourge, but, oddly enough, it was not treated in the way a modern disease is, and this is key to the understanding of the way the culture changed, even as the population was devastated by death. By the time one had symptoms of Plague - it was almost certainly a death sentence. Treatment was essentially ... cruelly ... not worth it.
 |
| (Don't mind the forward-slash "Smallpox" notation - this is a famous Plague illustration) |
It was, perhaps ironically, the Church who began to advise its flock in the means to prevent contraction of the disease, and bathing was a clear casualty in this period. In 1348, even common folk expected to bathe once a week, often by full-body-immersion, in the way we'd recognize as "bathing" today. This practice involved both exposure to cold and wet, but also nudity, and these things took on a relative menace, in a time when the friend you spoke with just this morning appearing by evening as a corpse. Everything did.
And so, we found workarounds, and even that time-honored "shortcut" (or entirety of personal ablution, as the case really can be, and not just in post-Plauge Europe), the Whore's Bath, sometimes saw its own short-cutting. (The WB is the standing cleansing, not necessarily even in a state of complete undress, in which we spot clean the ampits and groin. Foot washing has always held a special and symbolic place in the human heart, but as hygeine goes, it's less vital in the role of stink-control than those areas with the most glands.)
So modernity has this constructed memory, of Elizabethans or the denizens of Versailles, decked out in possibly filthy Bitchin' Velvets wafting around oranges jammed full of cloves, pouring perfume down their necks or decolletage, and powdering like mad over every possible other sin.
I would hardly venture to say NOBODY practiced these cosmetic half-truths. I know what the bodkin was for (*).
But it might just be some of them did long not to itch so much, or couldn't stand the smell of the pomanders themselves, or just had a different standard, and perhaps tried to prevent their wigs becoming home in the first place for the vermin they had to kill with jeweled scimitars in the second place (*get the functional picture, then?). It might be that the lesser the finery, the easier to wash - and same for the woman or man as well. Some of the heaviest powder-ers died of lead poisoning, anyway.
Eventually, we came to the place where any evidence of human biology, at least the olfactory kind (see Well Cut Through the Body for reference to wardrobe and the evidence of sexual enhancement, or Ancient Knickers for the possibility of early alluring lingerie), as morally outrageous. With this, sadly, has come both a judgmentalism of any culture not adhering to what may or may not really be all that healthy a "civilized" obsession - and of the past, which we have presumed out of hand to be entirely composed of filth and dirt.
It makes me want to shop for German soap.
And it makes me feel dirty, the baggage - and considerable moralism, not to mention cultural elitism - we've attached to the simple method of personal ablution. I think it stinks.
But I do love the fresh scent of sandalwood, too.
Saturday, August 18, 2012
Immaculate Misconception
This post is a companion post to today's earlier piece, Bitchin' Velvet.
Fresh from the bath, smelling of sandalwood and the rich perfume of my shampoo - feeling frank relief and joy in being clean, in my clean house - now seems the perfect time to write this post.
For one reason or another, the concept of cleanliness, specifically personal hygiene and bathing, have been cropping up a bit recently. As I've mused about costume (see BV link above), I've also been thinking about bathing - its history, its place in our culture over time, its myths above all, and its biological necessity.
As we like to project on the denizens of the past certain attitudes, behaviors, and silly costumes (histfic has often been a vehicle for simple consumption porn, as much as anachronistic sexuality), we also like to make assumptions about how things "really" were, entirely apart from pretty taffeta. One of the most popular areas of sneering, leering, and peering speculation is the subject of bathing.
Historical productions tend to fall at one extreme of the spectrum of immaculate-to-filthy. Books and other entertainments striving for "gritty realism" tend to ladle grime over a character and ruin extras' teeth in the name of truth - because, everyone knows, human beings were all utterly disgusting until two generations ago. That and, of course, there's a brand of "genuineness" we like to admire (from a safe, upwind distance) in a heroic character "all muck and muscle" ...
Those works presenting fresh, daisy-like heroines or dashing, leather-scented but clean-as-the-outdoors leading men have a tendency to present history for its purty fantasies rather than as anything in-depth enough to really think about.
As is always the case, the truth lies somewhere beside the point of production design. For one thing - there are more ways to clean oneself than full-immersion baptism, and one can effectively stay clean focusing on certain obvious areas. For two, there is a lot of room in between the extremes - which people like to forget.
Even today, the idea of daily, soap-and-water, full body dunking in steaming hot water is not only culturally unrealistic in considerable swaths of our globe, but outright wasteful in more of it than actually eschews the practice.
Biologically speaking, we weren't designed with this sort of bodily function presumed nor built in. The first thing most women, in particular, do after bathing is to moisturize. Because ablutions strip all the oils from our skin. Soap is a detergent, and detergents cut through oil, removing the natural emollients our skin would generate, left in an undisturbed state. All that oil we were taught to "fight", the whole t-zone of women's faces which has supported generations, now, of industries in acne-fighting, blotting paper, miracle cleansers, powders and cosmetics, is part of the functioning of normal human skin. That area of our faces, particularly in northern and colder climes, is most likely to be exposed and chapped by cold. The oil it builds up *really* fights those things our bodies encountered for millennia before we civilized ourselves into a whole new crop of skin conditions.
Of course, I say all this in a state of chemically aromatic "cleanliness" - as properly defined by the culture I live in today. I say it as a FAN of certain perfumes, of soaps, of moisturizers and shampoos. I say it as a woman who offers, as one of the longest-standing little personal compliments between us, the praise of Mr. X, that he is "immaculate".
But even if we don't admit it, there's a secret corner in most of our hearts where we understand the fabled quote of Napoleon to Josephine - essentially, "I'm coming home - don't take a bath, lover." That un-admitted part of us that recognizes a wordless bit of business from "Portrait of a Lady" where Nichole Kidman takes off her boot and sniffs it - or a certain moment from SNL's Superstar skits.
***
In Rome, not necessarily that place the popular imagination goes when it thinks about filthy history, bathing was accomplished not with detergents, but oils - and scrapers. There's a great scene in the BBC's "I, Claudius" episode one, where Tiberius and his brother discuss the ultimate state of friendlessness - in terms of the dearth of someone to clean your back for you. The social aspect of bathing is lost to us today, but makes for a pretty interesting study - and it was hardly lost, in those years they like to call "dark ages".
The modern inability to recognize as cleanliness any state not resulting from the application of Dial to every inch of the body is incredibly widespread, and remarkably silly. It's not just in the murky (mucky) past human beings have used other methods of personal hygeine. Take a look again at my Swabian with the topknot - not a drop of Prell to be had, and yet his hair GLEAMS even all these centuries later.
If you don't squick, and really look, that hair is really beautiful. And all without aid of civilized methods of ablution we only invented with mass-marketing ...
Fresh from the bath, smelling of sandalwood and the rich perfume of my shampoo - feeling frank relief and joy in being clean, in my clean house - now seems the perfect time to write this post.
For one reason or another, the concept of cleanliness, specifically personal hygiene and bathing, have been cropping up a bit recently. As I've mused about costume (see BV link above), I've also been thinking about bathing - its history, its place in our culture over time, its myths above all, and its biological necessity.
As we like to project on the denizens of the past certain attitudes, behaviors, and silly costumes (histfic has often been a vehicle for simple consumption porn, as much as anachronistic sexuality), we also like to make assumptions about how things "really" were, entirely apart from pretty taffeta. One of the most popular areas of sneering, leering, and peering speculation is the subject of bathing.
Historical productions tend to fall at one extreme of the spectrum of immaculate-to-filthy. Books and other entertainments striving for "gritty realism" tend to ladle grime over a character and ruin extras' teeth in the name of truth - because, everyone knows, human beings were all utterly disgusting until two generations ago. That and, of course, there's a brand of "genuineness" we like to admire (from a safe, upwind distance) in a heroic character "all muck and muscle" ...
 |
| This profile always reminds me of my ex husband. (Him, not her.) |
Those works presenting fresh, daisy-like heroines or dashing, leather-scented but clean-as-the-outdoors leading men have a tendency to present history for its purty fantasies rather than as anything in-depth enough to really think about.
As is always the case, the truth lies somewhere beside the point of production design. For one thing - there are more ways to clean oneself than full-immersion baptism, and one can effectively stay clean focusing on certain obvious areas. For two, there is a lot of room in between the extremes - which people like to forget.
 |
| Like I could have used any other image ... |
 |
| "Baby, can I wash your back?" They even look like they're surrounded in suds |
Even today, the idea of daily, soap-and-water, full body dunking in steaming hot water is not only culturally unrealistic in considerable swaths of our globe, but outright wasteful in more of it than actually eschews the practice.
Biologically speaking, we weren't designed with this sort of bodily function presumed nor built in. The first thing most women, in particular, do after bathing is to moisturize. Because ablutions strip all the oils from our skin. Soap is a detergent, and detergents cut through oil, removing the natural emollients our skin would generate, left in an undisturbed state. All that oil we were taught to "fight", the whole t-zone of women's faces which has supported generations, now, of industries in acne-fighting, blotting paper, miracle cleansers, powders and cosmetics, is part of the functioning of normal human skin. That area of our faces, particularly in northern and colder climes, is most likely to be exposed and chapped by cold. The oil it builds up *really* fights those things our bodies encountered for millennia before we civilized ourselves into a whole new crop of skin conditions.
Of course, I say all this in a state of chemically aromatic "cleanliness" - as properly defined by the culture I live in today. I say it as a FAN of certain perfumes, of soaps, of moisturizers and shampoos. I say it as a woman who offers, as one of the longest-standing little personal compliments between us, the praise of Mr. X, that he is "immaculate".
But even if we don't admit it, there's a secret corner in most of our hearts where we understand the fabled quote of Napoleon to Josephine - essentially, "I'm coming home - don't take a bath, lover." That un-admitted part of us that recognizes a wordless bit of business from "Portrait of a Lady" where Nichole Kidman takes off her boot and sniffs it - or a certain moment from SNL's Superstar skits.
***
In Rome, not necessarily that place the popular imagination goes when it thinks about filthy history, bathing was accomplished not with detergents, but oils - and scrapers. There's a great scene in the BBC's "I, Claudius" episode one, where Tiberius and his brother discuss the ultimate state of friendlessness - in terms of the dearth of someone to clean your back for you. The social aspect of bathing is lost to us today, but makes for a pretty interesting study - and it was hardly lost, in those years they like to call "dark ages".
The modern inability to recognize as cleanliness any state not resulting from the application of Dial to every inch of the body is incredibly widespread, and remarkably silly. It's not just in the murky (mucky) past human beings have used other methods of personal hygeine. Take a look again at my Swabian with the topknot - not a drop of Prell to be had, and yet his hair GLEAMS even all these centuries later.
If you don't squick, and really look, that hair is really beautiful. And all without aid of civilized methods of ablution we only invented with mass-marketing ...
Bitchin' Velvet
For those readers who may not be familiar with a cultural construct typified in a concept I like to call "the bitchin' Camaro", there is a use of this adjective which evokes a dude (it is *always* a "dude", man) who may have a mullet, is almost certainly smoking a Marlboro (it is always a Marlboro, man), and is wearing acid wash jeans tight to the ankle. He may have heard about the memo that 1990 has come and gone - but he doesn't care. And he drives a Bitchin' Camaro, thinking it's gonna get him "some tail".
The "bitchin'" this guy embodies is the way a lot of historical productions treat their design these days, most especially costuming. Films, miniseries, and shows touching on flashbacks or actual historicals seem to be populated, at our point in pop-culture history, with metal heads and emo lovers, endowed with crappy extensions (sorry, but as a lover of long-haired men, an actor given "long hair" by way of kanekalon always pretty much looks like a guy endowed with a bad fake mullet) and two-to-four days' stubble growth, wearing amazing costume design with all the historical authenticity of Prince after a particularly sweaty concert.
I'm focusing on men, you notice, and may want to sneer that I'm leaving the picture incomplete. True.
The women in these productions, you see, are given SUPERIOR extensions. Almost preternaturally glossy, thick, romance-novel tresses tend to unrealistically abound. Unbound. Of course. Oddly, the costume design on women, I notice, is often poorer, historically speaking. I think this is because the authentic look for certain periods seems cooler to our current sense of style, for men - as long as we give them the "bitchin'" look to keep it edgy, or goth, or dirty, or whatever. Authentic-with-lace is acceptable, as long as an actor is given a sheen of sweat, his laces are undone at the neck, his doublet carelessly loosened or entirely open - as long as we have the fake rockstar "hair" and some anachronistic modern sexual posturing to go with it.
Women's costuming, though ... has to be enhanced - actually changed, to suit current sensibility. To watch a film today is to believe that decolletege' was de rigueur at every hour of the day, for all possible occasions (especially one's own wedding - hah), for something approaching the ten centuries up to and including ours. Corsetry and that "well cut through the body" look have never, ever gone out of style - even in periods known for a more billowing, or at least less midriff-conscious silhouette.
This isn't new - but it amuses me that designers right now almost certainly presume to a higher level of "authenticity" than one saw in historical productions in, say, the 50s or 60s when (just for fun) Liz Taylor used to run around in inexplicable bouffant styles or hideous swim cap styled headgear, as if THAT were remotely believable:
(The less I say about trends in makeup, then OR now, the better - it all follows on this rant anyway.)
I think my personal favorite throw-authenticity-to-the-winds idea of feminine costume design in recent memory is the body paint, nude gold lipstick, and fishnet fantasy from "The Mummy" (a movie, by the way, I actually enjoy - let it always be understood that my willingness to enjoy a production is as distinct from my willingness to dumb myself down to its caprices in design):
My point isn't so much that I would bother to call designers or makeup artists to go for authenticity. Very few viewers of these productions truly prefer to give up the eye-candy aspect for rigorous veracity, after all.
This is just one of those areas in which a lot of fans get to, and love to, play Guitarist for a sort of fun. Even as we lust after the insanely beautiful taffetas, and maybe think about how we will get to dress for Hallowe'en ...
This post will have a companion post in the upcoming Immaculate Misconception ...
 |
| Bitchin' jacquard |
The "bitchin'" this guy embodies is the way a lot of historical productions treat their design these days, most especially costuming. Films, miniseries, and shows touching on flashbacks or actual historicals seem to be populated, at our point in pop-culture history, with metal heads and emo lovers, endowed with crappy extensions (sorry, but as a lover of long-haired men, an actor given "long hair" by way of kanekalon always pretty much looks like a guy endowed with a bad fake mullet) and two-to-four days' stubble growth, wearing amazing costume design with all the historical authenticity of Prince after a particularly sweaty concert.
I'm focusing on men, you notice, and may want to sneer that I'm leaving the picture incomplete. True.
The women in these productions, you see, are given SUPERIOR extensions. Almost preternaturally glossy, thick, romance-novel tresses tend to unrealistically abound. Unbound. Of course. Oddly, the costume design on women, I notice, is often poorer, historically speaking. I think this is because the authentic look for certain periods seems cooler to our current sense of style, for men - as long as we give them the "bitchin'" look to keep it edgy, or goth, or dirty, or whatever. Authentic-with-lace is acceptable, as long as an actor is given a sheen of sweat, his laces are undone at the neck, his doublet carelessly loosened or entirely open - as long as we have the fake rockstar "hair" and some anachronistic modern sexual posturing to go with it.
Women's costuming, though ... has to be enhanced - actually changed, to suit current sensibility. To watch a film today is to believe that decolletege' was de rigueur at every hour of the day, for all possible occasions (especially one's own wedding - hah), for something approaching the ten centuries up to and including ours. Corsetry and that "well cut through the body" look have never, ever gone out of style - even in periods known for a more billowing, or at least less midriff-conscious silhouette.
This isn't new - but it amuses me that designers right now almost certainly presume to a higher level of "authenticity" than one saw in historical productions in, say, the 50s or 60s when (just for fun) Liz Taylor used to run around in inexplicable bouffant styles or hideous swim cap styled headgear, as if THAT were remotely believable:
 |
| The Inexplicable Swim Cap |
 |
| A Mid-Century Modern Sunburst Wall Clock as Hair Decoration |
(The less I say about trends in makeup, then OR now, the better - it all follows on this rant anyway.)
I think my personal favorite throw-authenticity-to-the-winds idea of feminine costume design in recent memory is the body paint, nude gold lipstick, and fishnet fantasy from "The Mummy" (a movie, by the way, I actually enjoy - let it always be understood that my willingness to enjoy a production is as distinct from my willingness to dumb myself down to its caprices in design):
 |
| 'tude |
My point isn't so much that I would bother to call designers or makeup artists to go for authenticity. Very few viewers of these productions truly prefer to give up the eye-candy aspect for rigorous veracity, after all.
This is just one of those areas in which a lot of fans get to, and love to, play Guitarist for a sort of fun. Even as we lust after the insanely beautiful taffetas, and maybe think about how we will get to dress for Hallowe'en ...
This post will have a companion post in the upcoming Immaculate Misconception ...
Wednesday, August 15, 2012
Ask Me About Sandalwood Combs!
... c'mon, I dare ya. Because the archaeological evidence I researched personally, in attempting to build the "Barbarian" world of Clovis I was a treasure trove of knowledge about the fineness of their cultural arts AND their standard of hygiene, self-decoration, and personal appearance ...
Ahh, I never will forget the Swabian Topknot (great link for further images and pithy commentary here):
His skin care might not look like much a millennium later, but check out how amazingly the hair has held up! White Rain's got nothing on these people.
Found a link today at Historical Fiction Online, and this article reminded me of all that. What DID the Vikings really look like? Take a peek and see if you find out.
Ahh, I never will forget the Swabian Topknot (great link for further images and pithy commentary here):
His skin care might not look like much a millennium later, but check out how amazingly the hair has held up! White Rain's got nothing on these people.
Found a link today at Historical Fiction Online, and this article reminded me of all that. What DID the Vikings really look like? Take a peek and see if you find out.
Saturday, August 4, 2012
When Self Esteem = Cosmetic Surgery
This makes me heartsick for our "culture" and the children we inflict it upon.
I can't even add further comment. Just read the link, it says what it sets out to.
“Beautiful” is bullshit, a standard created to make women into good consumers, too busy wallowing in self-loathing to notice that we’re second class citizens.
I can't even add further comment. Just read the link, it says what it sets out to.
Friday, August 3, 2012
Gossa-Monster
Perhaps the best Gossamer quote from Looney Toons is when Bugs distracts the monster by going into chatterbox mode, treating the giant as if he were a beauty parlor client and saying, "Such an INteresting monster deserves an INteresting hairdo!" and setting up a permanent wave with sticks of dynamite.
I don't let him do it consistently, but I have let Goss knead around on my head a couple times. Today it just felt nice - I had a headache (hey, it must be high summer time), and he has velvet paws, my little boy. Short one Mr. X to give me a proper head rub, I let the little guy do his kneading thing.
I came away with such an interesting hairdo. It reminded me of the 80s swoop.
I don't let him do it consistently, but I have let Goss knead around on my head a couple times. Today it just felt nice - I had a headache (hey, it must be high summer time), and he has velvet paws, my little boy. Short one Mr. X to give me a proper head rub, I let the little guy do his kneading thing.
I came away with such an interesting hairdo. It reminded me of the 80s swoop.
Monday, July 16, 2012
Ancient Knickers
Sometimes, the surprised tone of media reportage regarding in-depth subjects without in-depth background (and the breathy, insinuating inventiveness often displayed by those with less of that background) is mildly amusing.
For instance, it turns out we didn't invent breast nor posterior coverings only 100 years ago. Also, the human body has not radically altered in design for some millennia, so the stuff we as a species may be likely to protect hasn't migrated or anything.
***
Continued surprises may be found in ancient Roman depictions of underwear.
Ahem.
For instance, it turns out we didn't invent breast nor posterior coverings only 100 years ago. Also, the human body has not radically altered in design for some millennia, so the stuff we as a species may be likely to protect hasn't migrated or anything.
***
Continued surprises may be found in ancient Roman depictions of underwear.
Ahem.
Monday, May 14, 2012
Ack - My Back
Okay, I definitely settled too soon/too low with that other driver's insurance company.
Good news is, Brookstone sells these for sixty bucks. I can afford sixty bucks.
Good news is, Brookstone sells these for sixty bucks. I can afford sixty bucks.
Monday, February 13, 2012
Weight, and See
I've lost a good amount of weight lately; about two-thirds of the total I have wanted to see gone since The Unemployment Gain of April-July 2010. I'd dipped a bit some months ago, but didn't hold it off, and feel significantly more confident that this time it's *gone*. I'm doing more work, is the thing, and something ineffable just seems to have "lifted" in some other way. Something is out of my way - most likely myself, of course.
It's been feeling, lately, like a lot of things are getting out of the way. I haven't been writing to my own satisfaction. But thoughts are coming. Like moving hunks of ice, breaking, freeing the river to run again.
We shall see. We shall see ...
It's been feeling, lately, like a lot of things are getting out of the way. I haven't been writing to my own satisfaction. But thoughts are coming. Like moving hunks of ice, breaking, freeing the river to run again.
We shall see. We shall see ...
Saturday, January 7, 2012
Masculine/Feminine
The Ax and the Vase is a book of men, focused on masculinity, monarchy, and the Church. The work in progress (still obstinately untitled) moves into another world - and, while the focus remains similar, the characters do affect the particulars. We're in a more southern clime now, and moving less among the men.
This gives me the opportunity to indulge the scholarly side of what appear to be my more "traditionally feminine" interests. I can study the history of perfume, and revel in the details of costume and cosmetics.
This comes not in service of tarting up an empty story, but in adding depth to aspects of storytelling I consciously did not give full rein in A&V. Clovis tells his story himself - and, because of that, I felt that certain specifics (touching the detail regarding the appearance of the characters - including himself - and more fanciful descriptions of feeling, or omnipotent observations) would be a bit precious. His character is not introspective, and it can hardly be expected of a "Barbarian" prince that he would expend consideration on fine points of this type. So they are less in evidence in that novel.
The shift is not merely from the focus on masculine characters, but also a transition from first person point of view to an omnipotent voice. Telling the story from the point of view of a single character is not limiting as such, but does prevent an author from poking around in other minds, or contemplating the corners of rooms in which he is not actually standing.
And so my new researches will spoil the theater major in me with the opportunity to look at textiles and kohl pots, coiffure and headdress, etiquette and protocol.
I call this a shift into the feminine, but let it hardly be thought that I am devolving into characters obsessed with pink and ruffles. For one, even the most cursory education in the history of costume will teach anyone that pink, in its association with modern, facile notions of vacuous femininity. For two, my joy in this work is that I will be able to present full-bodied women in my work, authentically constrained within the world women occupied for all the millennia before my own privileged life was given to me - and yet exerting the remarkable nature of human autonomy, in all the ways we find to express it between and beneath the limits we impose on each other.
Femininity may indeed allow me to focus on "girlie" things. I promise, though: it won't prevent my writing actual characters ...
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Ahh - The Article Referring to Those Photos
And an excellent comment from the readership:
November 30, 2011 at 5:52 pm
Somewhere in between the obesity epidemic and photoshopping, lies the truth.
The Magic of Touch-Ups
And the cruelty of expectations. Bro, please look at these with the girls. X, you guys too.
Speaking as someone who LOVES the artificiality of makeup, and who recognizes just how CGI'd most images have become - perhaps even more in photography we don't even think about being altered than in special effects we acknowledge every day - the pervasiveness and effects of this imagery are saddening, sickening, deeply disturbing. Many of the pics used are obviously exemplars - just ways to demonstrate the power of image manipulation.
But too many of them are the faces of those put before us every day as expectations - as ideals - to aspire to.
And the one of the child is just too much to even manage, emotionally. A *child* isn't deemed beautiful enough to print. *Sigh*
Speaking as someone who LOVES the artificiality of makeup, and who recognizes just how CGI'd most images have become - perhaps even more in photography we don't even think about being altered than in special effects we acknowledge every day - the pervasiveness and effects of this imagery are saddening, sickening, deeply disturbing. Many of the pics used are obviously exemplars - just ways to demonstrate the power of image manipulation.
But too many of them are the faces of those put before us every day as expectations - as ideals - to aspire to.
And the one of the child is just too much to even manage, emotionally. A *child* isn't deemed beautiful enough to print. *Sigh*
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Apropos of Niggling Fashion Sense
Why does Deanna Troi always have on copper lipstick when they dress her in a burgundy jumpsuit? Aieeeee!
Just wonderin'.
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Weight
So over the past two weeks or so, I've lost a good bit of that "unemployment" (ahem) weight which has been irritating me by reminding me constantly that ... I haven't actually been unemployed now for about nine months. Erm.
Usually, stress doesn't make me drop the pounds (and only half of the 15 or so I gained are gone), but I guess the niggling is working this time. Or this stress is just special. Ahem. Anyway, for several days now I've just been disinterested in food. It's hard to decide, some nights - you come home, you're alone, you have a conflicting pair of ideas about how to go about dinner, you don't *especially* feel like bothering, you start blogging, and dang if - ... now, how is it 9:01 p.m. now??
Huh.
And you find that is a stupid time to order out, and because you don't feel like dragging around the kitchen, it's simply too late to bother STARTING cooking.
The Big Meeting starts tomorrow, for my team - not in my location, but very much on my plate. We've been working with the tech folks to make up for the fiasco we had last month, we've been working with facilities and planning, we've been working with each other, and all our speakers and participants. The level of work that goes into a meeting like this gives me incredible gratitude for the infantry who do this every day - who get us the rooms, who keep working after that to get us BETTER rooms, who coordinate with security, who do so many things.
And we are doing so many things. This thing has been in the works for three months now, and the addition of the make-up technical event is significant.
So my attention has been absorbed in this meeting for a long time now ... and, by Thursday afternoon at one o'clock, the worst of it will be over.
I've also been watching an extreme percentage of the people I love dealing with surgery and major health events. There's been a great deal of prayer in X's family's direction. I had my own sprain (not much of a motivator, itself, for the wanting-to-get-up-and-do-a-lot-of-cooking).
There's been a lot taking my attention off my belly. And so, my belly has been growing a bit smaller.
I don't pretend I object to this, but it is a little galling that I didn't really manage this in a more reasonable way. Still, the hope now is (a) to ditch the other half of the weight, and (b) to keep it at bay.
Now for sheer stubbornness to step in and keep off by dint of cussedness what my failure in resolve hasn't handled thus far.
Usually, stress doesn't make me drop the pounds (and only half of the 15 or so I gained are gone), but I guess the niggling is working this time. Or this stress is just special. Ahem. Anyway, for several days now I've just been disinterested in food. It's hard to decide, some nights - you come home, you're alone, you have a conflicting pair of ideas about how to go about dinner, you don't *especially* feel like bothering, you start blogging, and dang if - ... now, how is it 9:01 p.m. now??
Huh.
And you find that is a stupid time to order out, and because you don't feel like dragging around the kitchen, it's simply too late to bother STARTING cooking.
The Big Meeting starts tomorrow, for my team - not in my location, but very much on my plate. We've been working with the tech folks to make up for the fiasco we had last month, we've been working with facilities and planning, we've been working with each other, and all our speakers and participants. The level of work that goes into a meeting like this gives me incredible gratitude for the infantry who do this every day - who get us the rooms, who keep working after that to get us BETTER rooms, who coordinate with security, who do so many things.
And we are doing so many things. This thing has been in the works for three months now, and the addition of the make-up technical event is significant.
So my attention has been absorbed in this meeting for a long time now ... and, by Thursday afternoon at one o'clock, the worst of it will be over.
I've also been watching an extreme percentage of the people I love dealing with surgery and major health events. There's been a great deal of prayer in X's family's direction. I had my own sprain (not much of a motivator, itself, for the wanting-to-get-up-and-do-a-lot-of-cooking).
There's been a lot taking my attention off my belly. And so, my belly has been growing a bit smaller.
I don't pretend I object to this, but it is a little galling that I didn't really manage this in a more reasonable way. Still, the hope now is (a) to ditch the other half of the weight, and (b) to keep it at bay.
Now for sheer stubbornness to step in and keep off by dint of cussedness what my failure in resolve hasn't handled thus far.
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Trick
Anyone who's ever tried to do white makeup knows how difficult it is to get right. It sits on your skin and looks cakey, flaky - it just can't be done like regular foundation.
And that's the trick to getting it right. I used to think white makeup was best served by trying to scrub my skin to the freshest, healthiest layer. Because it seems to sit on the slightest dryness like a highlight, white makeup can make you look positively scaly - so I used to try to scrub and scrub so there could be no possible patch that wasn't perfectly smooth. And then I'd try to go out for Hallowe'en as a vampire, and find that my skin wasn't perfectly smooth except to my poorly attuned naked eye - the makeup would do its "ha ha, you're a reptile" thing - and the effect would be ruined.
White makeup, it has to be said, is not designed to disappear on the skin the way color matched foundation is. It's mean to COVER, not blend - and so it has to sit on a surface primed for that purpose. Not just glopped straight on, more and more, hoping for the least-worst. And no amount of moisturizer will perform this (surface) service.
The trick is: lay down a thin layer of the makeup you use that DOES match your skin. Maybe a shade lighter, sure. But don't try to go straight from your skin to white makeup. Even as pale as I am: that doesn't work. Period.
A layer of your own foundation - even a thin layer - gives something that communicates to both sides, as it were. The foundation designed for your skin is compatible for the job of making up your skin. And the white foundation is compatible with THAT. So you get the velvet-smooth desired effect.
It's a ton of makeup, yes.
But it ends up being probably less than many slather on working white makeup up to the point of a geisha effect. And less makes more of a point, too. You don't have to go clown-white to get a pretty heightened effect, with white makeup.
Anyway. Hallowe'en tip from me to you ...
And that's the trick to getting it right. I used to think white makeup was best served by trying to scrub my skin to the freshest, healthiest layer. Because it seems to sit on the slightest dryness like a highlight, white makeup can make you look positively scaly - so I used to try to scrub and scrub so there could be no possible patch that wasn't perfectly smooth. And then I'd try to go out for Hallowe'en as a vampire, and find that my skin wasn't perfectly smooth except to my poorly attuned naked eye - the makeup would do its "ha ha, you're a reptile" thing - and the effect would be ruined.
White makeup, it has to be said, is not designed to disappear on the skin the way color matched foundation is. It's mean to COVER, not blend - and so it has to sit on a surface primed for that purpose. Not just glopped straight on, more and more, hoping for the least-worst. And no amount of moisturizer will perform this (surface) service.
The trick is: lay down a thin layer of the makeup you use that DOES match your skin. Maybe a shade lighter, sure. But don't try to go straight from your skin to white makeup. Even as pale as I am: that doesn't work. Period.
A layer of your own foundation - even a thin layer - gives something that communicates to both sides, as it were. The foundation designed for your skin is compatible for the job of making up your skin. And the white foundation is compatible with THAT. So you get the velvet-smooth desired effect.
It's a ton of makeup, yes.
But it ends up being probably less than many slather on working white makeup up to the point of a geisha effect. And less makes more of a point, too. You don't have to go clown-white to get a pretty heightened effect, with white makeup.
Anyway. Hallowe'en tip from me to you ...
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
A Geek Too Far
Okay, so full disclosure (and irony, please) - this happened last night, while I was watching "Bram Stoker's Dracula" for the first time in probably nineteen or however-many years it's been since that came out. So please appreciate not the embarrassment of my nerd-lery here, but the particular piece of entertainment at hand.
All righty then.
I'm watching this at ten or so at night, because heck if there is anything worth giving broadcast time to. And I've had pasta and broccoli for dinner, and it was good, so I go back for the last bite or so of leftovers, and I get a piece of broccoli stuck on my tooth.
Not *between* my teeth, but on the very tip-end of one of my incisors. This is pretty weird, considering broccoli isn't your typical sticky food.
It's the second time something's gotten stuck there, too, in the past several days.
Uh oh.
***
Okay, so here is the thing. Much of the dental assets I have on view are bonding - not actual biological teeth. I had a bike wreck when I was ten. Since then, four times now, every ten years or so, I have gotten a new set of teeth.
My incisors, the pride of my whole historical collection, are the first set I've had of nice pointy canines, since the seventies. I love my incisors, and not because I'm a big old vampire nit. Just because I *have* some!
So something sticking on the tip of one of my canines tells me this: my three-year-old tootscape is chipping. I found a nick on the right hand side not long ago, and this is the left.
The great thing here is, in both my COBRA elections and in my new elections at the current employer: I skipped dental coverage, to wait for the first of the year.
Naturally.
For now, the tooth is intact, and the right hand side I'm not worried about. If one goes, I may have to do something about the other one, rather than getting the first one fixed right away.
What I am saying leads me to the REAL meat of my geekiness matter. For those with dental squeamishness - STOP READING RIGHT NOW.
Because here is what I had to do.
I had to file off the rough spot.
Now, for me, this is not an impressive matter. I've had to do it before. I've had my front teeth replaced four times in thirty years. I once had this done without novocaine, kids. A pumice file to the nonliving tip of one incisor is nothing to me. But a matter of practicality.
But here is the thing. I'm a dang Ferengi, here.
THAT. Even for me. Is definitely too much.
Yep. "Health and beauty" is a tag for a post about the Ferengi and me filing my teeth.
Man life is weird stuff.
All righty then.
I'm watching this at ten or so at night, because heck if there is anything worth giving broadcast time to. And I've had pasta and broccoli for dinner, and it was good, so I go back for the last bite or so of leftovers, and I get a piece of broccoli stuck on my tooth.
Not *between* my teeth, but on the very tip-end of one of my incisors. This is pretty weird, considering broccoli isn't your typical sticky food.
It's the second time something's gotten stuck there, too, in the past several days.
Uh oh.
***
Okay, so here is the thing. Much of the dental assets I have on view are bonding - not actual biological teeth. I had a bike wreck when I was ten. Since then, four times now, every ten years or so, I have gotten a new set of teeth.
My incisors, the pride of my whole historical collection, are the first set I've had of nice pointy canines, since the seventies. I love my incisors, and not because I'm a big old vampire nit. Just because I *have* some!
So something sticking on the tip of one of my canines tells me this: my three-year-old tootscape is chipping. I found a nick on the right hand side not long ago, and this is the left.
The great thing here is, in both my COBRA elections and in my new elections at the current employer: I skipped dental coverage, to wait for the first of the year.
Naturally.
For now, the tooth is intact, and the right hand side I'm not worried about. If one goes, I may have to do something about the other one, rather than getting the first one fixed right away.
What I am saying leads me to the REAL meat of my geekiness matter. For those with dental squeamishness - STOP READING RIGHT NOW.
Because here is what I had to do.
I had to file off the rough spot.
Now, for me, this is not an impressive matter. I've had to do it before. I've had my front teeth replaced four times in thirty years. I once had this done without novocaine, kids. A pumice file to the nonliving tip of one incisor is nothing to me. But a matter of practicality.
But here is the thing. I'm a dang Ferengi, here.
THAT. Even for me. Is definitely too much.
Yep. "Health and beauty" is a tag for a post about the Ferengi and me filing my teeth.
Man life is weird stuff.
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Speaking of Blather
An age and vanity post is hardly overdue, but I did have an amusing moment at the new job day before yesterday.
At almost four days in the new office, I'm hardly a novelty anymore, but there is still a lot of getting-to-know-you stuff lying before us. One of the women in the group reminds me a good deal of a friend I had at my job in the mid-nineties; the requisite funny and brash woman in the office I have occasionally been myself. The one I knew before was right around my age, and filled my head with stock phrases such as "What is the DEAL, Pickle???" and "naked aborigine" (referring, actually only the one time - so not so much a stock phrase, as such - to her husband), and essentially being, you know - brash. And funny. She was D. So for ease of nonidentification, we can call the new girl D2.
D2 and I were talking briefly, when she said something about how young I was. I blinked for a moment and asked her how old she thinks I am, because she was clearly off; her response was somewhere in the twenties. I explained the truth of the matter, and she blew out a "no WAY" and commentary on how certainly *that* was not fair of me. "I never would have guessed!"
D2's buddy walked around the corner, and she paused long enough to get "How old do you think Diane is!?" This answer came in at a believable thirty-five. When corrected, she looked up at me sardonically and laughingly uttered the word for a feminine hound (not offensively).
I realize I've long played this game; since even my actual late twenties, people have found me younger-looking than I am. Because this began somewhat early, I have to say - cultural conditioning to the contrary, and years of unexamined amusement about it aside - I don't, as such, find the supposition of my youth in itself a point of flattery. I know it's meant as such; and the effect has become pronounced enough that I absolutely use it to my advantage (the game above? not my first time at the rodeo, by a long shot). I'm fairly certain that there is at least some cognitive dissonance between the resume I present and the face I have to go with it, at times. I'm also aware of the advantages certain aspects of my appearance confer, and I ruthlessly exploit that. My obsession with costuming and personal-appearance deployment doesn't fall short in the professional department. In periods of unemployment, it goes into overdrive.
In its own terms, though, and in myself, the fact of my pleasure in my own age, and the extent of effort it took me to gain its experience, render "you look young" a compliment only by virtue of the fact that it's meant as such rather than by its actual content. "You are beautiful" is something I take, from E or perhaps from my ex, with the full force and power intended. But not looking forty-two is more an accident than an end. I use it, but I didn't particularly make this happen. Yeah, I haven't been in the sun since 1986, as I joke - but that hasn't been the matter of "oh, I must preserve my youth!" so much as the function of a girl who doesn't like to go outside. Yeah, I'm conceited as can be - and I use the accident of my appearance - but I take little real credit for the causes, nor anything beyond clothing, makeup and hairstyling. Apart from covering my white hair until there comes to be enough of it I'll flaunt it fully, I don't style myself for "youth" so much as what I like - and feel is flattering. Extreme youth isn't a look I strive for, and in fact I stay away from things that might "really" signify me as part of a generation I'm not in. I don't adopt current fads and trends; in fact, I stay well away from anything which might appear as if I were trying to look young.
For that matter, I wasn't all that much into trends when I *was* young(er) - and that is probably some part of the supposed magic. The state of my skin is only one piece of the equation; anothe is the state of my style. Because I never got addicted to clue-catcher bangs and spiral perms, I don't bear some of the badges of my own generation, and THAT is a major factor in not looking my age, too. I'm not branded by the fashions of the eighties, and that is one signifier of age-appearance.
No small aspect of the "compliment" that a woman doesn't look her age (it's always women - isn't it?) lies in a woman's lack of shoulder pads, Swatch watches, pleated jeans, add-a-bead necklaces, and L. A. Gear sneakers with multiple neon shoe laces.
And so we have the secret: because I was un-hip back in the day, I'm not locked in that day. Nerdliness is next to youthfulness, or something of the kind.
Not caring about my apparent youth of course goes hand in hand with the conceit that I am fabulous no matter the number of years I've been so. And I do know I need to not play the silly game; it's insufferable, even to me. But it still does *interest* me - both the importance people ascribe to the disparity, and the virtue even I subscribe to in participating so in these compliments.
At almost four days in the new office, I'm hardly a novelty anymore, but there is still a lot of getting-to-know-you stuff lying before us. One of the women in the group reminds me a good deal of a friend I had at my job in the mid-nineties; the requisite funny and brash woman in the office I have occasionally been myself. The one I knew before was right around my age, and filled my head with stock phrases such as "What is the DEAL, Pickle???" and "naked aborigine" (referring, actually only the one time - so not so much a stock phrase, as such - to her husband), and essentially being, you know - brash. And funny. She was D. So for ease of nonidentification, we can call the new girl D2.
D2 and I were talking briefly, when she said something about how young I was. I blinked for a moment and asked her how old she thinks I am, because she was clearly off; her response was somewhere in the twenties. I explained the truth of the matter, and she blew out a "no WAY" and commentary on how certainly *that* was not fair of me. "I never would have guessed!"
D2's buddy walked around the corner, and she paused long enough to get "How old do you think Diane is!?" This answer came in at a believable thirty-five. When corrected, she looked up at me sardonically and laughingly uttered the word for a feminine hound (not offensively).
I realize I've long played this game; since even my actual late twenties, people have found me younger-looking than I am. Because this began somewhat early, I have to say - cultural conditioning to the contrary, and years of unexamined amusement about it aside - I don't, as such, find the supposition of my youth in itself a point of flattery. I know it's meant as such; and the effect has become pronounced enough that I absolutely use it to my advantage (the game above? not my first time at the rodeo, by a long shot). I'm fairly certain that there is at least some cognitive dissonance between the resume I present and the face I have to go with it, at times. I'm also aware of the advantages certain aspects of my appearance confer, and I ruthlessly exploit that. My obsession with costuming and personal-appearance deployment doesn't fall short in the professional department. In periods of unemployment, it goes into overdrive.
In its own terms, though, and in myself, the fact of my pleasure in my own age, and the extent of effort it took me to gain its experience, render "you look young" a compliment only by virtue of the fact that it's meant as such rather than by its actual content. "You are beautiful" is something I take, from E or perhaps from my ex, with the full force and power intended. But not looking forty-two is more an accident than an end. I use it, but I didn't particularly make this happen. Yeah, I haven't been in the sun since 1986, as I joke - but that hasn't been the matter of "oh, I must preserve my youth!" so much as the function of a girl who doesn't like to go outside. Yeah, I'm conceited as can be - and I use the accident of my appearance - but I take little real credit for the causes, nor anything beyond clothing, makeup and hairstyling. Apart from covering my white hair until there comes to be enough of it I'll flaunt it fully, I don't style myself for "youth" so much as what I like - and feel is flattering. Extreme youth isn't a look I strive for, and in fact I stay away from things that might "really" signify me as part of a generation I'm not in. I don't adopt current fads and trends; in fact, I stay well away from anything which might appear as if I were trying to look young.
For that matter, I wasn't all that much into trends when I *was* young(er) - and that is probably some part of the supposed magic. The state of my skin is only one piece of the equation; anothe is the state of my style. Because I never got addicted to clue-catcher bangs and spiral perms, I don't bear some of the badges of my own generation, and THAT is a major factor in not looking my age, too. I'm not branded by the fashions of the eighties, and that is one signifier of age-appearance.
No small aspect of the "compliment" that a woman doesn't look her age (it's always women - isn't it?) lies in a woman's lack of shoulder pads, Swatch watches, pleated jeans, add-a-bead necklaces, and L. A. Gear sneakers with multiple neon shoe laces.
And so we have the secret: because I was un-hip back in the day, I'm not locked in that day. Nerdliness is next to youthfulness, or something of the kind.
Not caring about my apparent youth of course goes hand in hand with the conceit that I am fabulous no matter the number of years I've been so. And I do know I need to not play the silly game; it's insufferable, even to me. But it still does *interest* me - both the importance people ascribe to the disparity, and the virtue even I subscribe to in participating so in these compliments.
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Ow
Okay, I think the parallel lines here are actually two separate impact wounds - I had thought they showed the tread of a step, but I think it's actually *BAM! BAM!* two bounces on my way tumbling down the stairs.
Scariest thing about these photos - they actually washed-out the coloration of the bruising. In reality, it was BLACK last night when I took these. Far worse looking than the pictures have captured.
Yeek.
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Dead Ends
Time for a haircut in about 45 minutes. None too soon, either.
One more to-do before the first day on the new job. And on the way home: to shop for a little bit of paint and maybe some spackle.
Mmm. Spackle.
Heh.
One more to-do before the first day on the new job. And on the way home: to shop for a little bit of paint and maybe some spackle.
Mmm. Spackle.
Heh.
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