Long Live the 80's

So we fashionable Segullah chics had an 80's party. I thought you might like to see my get-up. Roger, who, like his wife, left his fashion sense behind once we hit 1990, looked at me in my design and said, "Why don't you dress like that more often?"

Please especially note the legwarmers (a sweater in the D.I. pile gave its sleeves for me that day) and the big bow (my hair was not long enough for the banana clip that I have religiously saved since 1985). I tried to get the bangs-to-heaven, but not sure I succeeded.


That's me singing Thompson Twins's "Hold Me Now." I discovered, as I tried to match the melody line to earn points in this game, that in the 80's I always sang harmony, not melody. I'm really good at the back-up singer's part on every song. Here, I'm trying not to sing (falsetto), "In yer lovin' arrrrms . . . Oh, my poor and tired hearrrrt . . . why don't you stay with me?" etc.

During the 80's, I worked at the coolest place to work in the 80's, the 49th Street Galleria. I remember watching a couple come in once who were obviously stuck in the 70's. I wrinkled my nose and thought to myself, "That will never happen to me." And now it has. I make my little efforts to dress at least in the last decade, but I know I am failing miserably because I have no idea whether I'm passing or not, nor what I should change to look more modern. (Is it too late to try growing out my bangs again, or are we back to bangs?) I only know that everything in the stores is ugly to me. So I must be way, way out.

Other than being stuck in the 80's fashion-wise, I wonder whether I look my age. What do you think? In these pictures, you can't see the wrinkles around my eyes or the gray roots in my hair. I almost look like I'm still eighteen, right? (I'm going on thirty-eight. I guess that's a good excuse for not knowing how to wear my hair these days. But I still feel too young for the "abandon all hope and get an old-lady haircut" stage.)

Little Tiny Hairs

So I decided to do something wild and crazy today: pluck my eyebrows. Now, if you are a loyal reader, you know my feelings about plucking eyebrows. (If you're a new and future loyal reader, you can read them here.) I decided to do this momentous deed for two reasons:

The first is that I looked at myself today and thought I was looking my age. And my friend Angela says that plucking eyebrows "does wonders for opening up faces." And let me tell you, brothers and sisters, something needed opening up this morning.

The second reason is that I was going out to lunch with Angela today.

So the thing no one ever told me about plucking eyebrows (besides everything) is that there is a trick to it. I do not currently know the trick. But I know there must be one. Because I had to pluck each hair NO FEWER THAN FIVE TIMES. The darn tweezers kept slipping off the hairs. Or the little hair would break off so that I then had to PLUCK THE WHISKER. Now what kind of idiot would go through the pain of each hair being pulled out of its socket FIVE TIMES????? Certainly women aren't doing that to themselves every day. There MUST be a secret.

But now it's done (I think—how do I know for sure?). I was smart enough to stop before I had nothing left and had to draw an old-lady-line two inches above my regular brow ("opens up the face"). I probably stopped too soon. I can't tell. And now I'm wondering if Angela will notice. Probably not, because she'll be distracted (more by my fascinating conversation than by her six-month-old and my four-year-old, I'm sure). But I'll let you know if she does.

Meanwhile, I would show you a picture but our digital camera is broken, and no one here knows how to fix it. (Aye, 'tis verily so. You think that a person who can't even figure out tweezers would know how to work a CAMERA?) And, of course, we can't pay to have it fixed--because I'm going out to eat today. I've got my priorities straight, even if my eyebrows aren't. So if you see me within the next few weeks with whiskers around my eyes, you'll know what happened. I'll have "Li'l tahnee hayers, growin' out ma face!"—and if you know what comedy sketch from the early 70's that quote came from, you are probably my sister (Hi, Mar).

In addition to killing innocent hairs today, I also pulled out two entire healthy, producing plants from my garden, a tomato plants (with about 20 large, green tomatoes) and a zucchini plant. Yes, I saved the tomatoes to put face-down on newspaper in a sunny place so that we can eat them. I had to pull these plants out because my garden is insanely fertile and it has so many productive plants that have outgrown their space that I can't even WALK to the back of the garden. I am cursed with this garden. I hate gardening, and I have the most fertile square of soil in the United States! This year I was too lazy to actually plan a garden and simply threw some seeds I had leftover from last year in the general vicinity of the plot. I did, also buy three tomato plants. (Because the six I did last year were WAY, WAY too many for my family and all the families on my circle and any relatives who would take tomatoes from me).

I hadn't counted on volunteer plants. I had at least FIVE volunteer tomato plants! Arrggh!

I wonder if all this has something to do with my fertility earrings?

So anyway, I just wanted to say that pulling out those plants this morning made me feel dirty (in more ways than one), as if I had committed murder. I'm hanging my (well-plucked) head in shame, today, because I have killed some of God's creatures—productive ones, at that. I'm sorry, sorry, sorry. I hope I'll be able to apologize and explain to the little tomato and zucchini spirits in heaven someday.

Park Bench

(by, well, me)

Wherever it is you've gotten to these days, I wonder
if you know you've got a piece of me stuck
in your back pocket, the way I still have wisps of you
clinging to my hair or caught in my shoe
making me limp now and then.

Someday a hundred eons hence we'll meet
at a park bench on the edge of that fat fair Finally--
where people go pocketless and pieces float free
in the wide autumn light—
to put things back where they belong.

In that place people pause to pass around minds,
try memories on for size, share sips of point of view.

Ten minutes on a bench. For once and all you'll see
without the fog of pride that yes, I really loved you.
Maybe, too, I'll see that you forgive me.

"Ahh!" we'll say, and then shake hands and mosey off
into our separate destinies, kicking at a pebble, maybe,
feeling lighter for the trade.

Girl Stuff

A few months ago someone forwarded me one of those “too-often-forwarded” e-mails. This one was about sandals. It was a pledge that women are supposed to take for the summer about how they will keep their toenails painted neatly all summer or not wear sandals. I’m not sure whether the person who sent it to me was trying to give me, in particular, a hint (and I wouldn’t be surprised, since I don’t pay much attention to my toenails), or whether she was just forwarding it to everyone. But I’ve been thinking about it while I put on my sandals today. Are there actually women (and are there a lot of them?) out there who are so seriously bothered by the state of other women’s toenails? Have I been offending a large portion of the population by not keeping my toenails manicured every summer? Are there other ways that I am offending people in my personal grooming that I haven’t been aware of?

I am all too aware that I have shortcomings when it comes to girl stuff. I don’t know how to put on makeup. I have no idea how to accessorize. I can’t see why people ever enjoy shopping at all. I didn’t know until a roommate told me in college that there is a rule about not wearing white until after Memorial Day (????). I know I’m backwards about these things. And I can’t shake the feeling that there are lots of other little rules and things that I’m unaware of and which make people wince when I break them.

What are they? What are they, people, and tell me this: am I seriously offending people right and left? Someone come to my rescue and teach me these things!

For example, how (and why) do people reshape their eyebrows? (Other than if you have the uni-brow problem, I mean.) I can tell that lots of women do it, but I’m not sure why. Should I be doing it too? Are my eyebrows proclaiming to everyone (at least everyone who speaks the Secret Chic Language) that I am sloppy? What should I be doing to them? And how? Do women really use those skinny little pencils to color in their WHOLE eyebrows?

And how do women keep their legs looking smooth and hairless every day? Do they shave every single day? Or is there some secret I don’t know about?

Why would anyone wear lip gloss? Why oh why? Is there something I don’t know about that sticky, gunky stuff?

And how do they keep their bra straps from showing all the time? I’d really like to know the answer to this one because it’s driving me crazy. Maybe most of them don’t have as narrow shoulders as I do and they don’t struggle with it like I do. Who knows? It’s not like I can stop people on the street: “Excuse me. I notice your bra strap is not creeping into your scoop-neck T-shirt. How do you do that?” (And, by the way, that’s another mystery. Where are people buying these T-shirts that manage to look unwrinkled, just tight enough but not too tight in the armpit, and long enough to stay down? And how do they figure out which necklace to wear with them so that it doesn’t look like they are just wearing a T-shirt like I always look?)
One thing I know for sure and that is that I am hopelessly backward when it comes to fashion. I go to the mall and realize that I am one of those people I used to look at with pity when I was a teenager because they were dressed so “out of it.” (Back then the losers wore bell-bottoms.) I know I’m out of it because nothing I would ever actually wear is for sale at the mall. However, I don’t know HOW out of it I am. Am I out of it in a “boring, adult” kind of way, or am I sticking out as badly as the flower children did to me in the 80’s? Do the teenagers in the ward feel sorry for me, standing up there in front of the congregation leading the music on Sundays? Do I make people wince? I honestly have NO CLUE how out of things I am. I am just plugging along, hoping a big grin will make it all OK.

Is there a class I can take about these things? I missed “Basic Girl 201” somewhere in my education, and I’ve never been able to make it up. (I’ve heard of those “image consultants.” Believe me, I’d do it if I could afford both the class and the wardrobe they would recommend.) I’m just glad my husband loves me anyway (and that he doesn’t seem to wince when he looks at me—maybe he’s just as far out of things as I am) and glad I’ve had no daughters on whom I would potentially perpetuate my cluelessness.

Whaddya think?

The polls are open. You get to affect history. I'm looking for votes, people. At our house, there is an ongoing debate about whether short hair is better (for me) than long. So here are the choices:

This is my hair short. Notice the lovely scarf I knitted this month. It looks especially nice over my pajamas, doesn't it?

. . . and here it is long, taken sometime last year.

So, be honest. Which do you like better? And you don't have to like one of these in particular. You could say, "I like it better short, but not that style." Or ditto for long. Please vote. I need your help.

One of the reasons I was reluctant to move back here . . .

I took the kids to Wheeler Farm today. It was very crowded—mostly by daycares and elementary school field trips, but also by moms with kids. I really felt out of it when I noticed that 95% of the moms were dressed to the hilt. We’re talking ultra-styled hair, designer clothes, fake nails, flashy earrings and other jewelry, full makeup and fake tans. Of course, they all had tiny little flip-flops (or high-heeled sandals) and capris, and matching handbags. The little Chloes and and Kesslers and Sydneys were, for the most part, all Gapped out as well. Sheesh! To go to the farm!

The thing that bothered me most: I suddenly felt ugly. I mean, it’s one thing to think these chics are crazy (I do)—but it’s another, and somehow shameful IMO, to let them make me feel insecure. But I did. But I showed them, didn’t I. I came home and wrote a scathing blog about their vanity. Take that!

(Their legs were shaved, too. Or probably lasered.)

Shoes . . . and Fashion . . . and Spirituality

Shoes
Am I really the only woman under fifty whose feet hurt? My new, custom-made insoles do wonders for me, but they mean that I have to wear sneakers everywhere. And I’m beginning to notice that NO ONE wears sneakers. Cute sandals (even in winter). Cute little skinny boots. But I am the only person running around in big, clunky white sneakers (the kind I begged my parents to buy me back in junior high—that you would wear with little pom-pom socks and a big-handled rubber comb in your back pocket). So is everyone wincing with pain or am I just old before my time? Couldn't we all just decide together that comfortable shoes are fashionable?

Fashion in General
And speaking of shoes, I know I am the least fashionable person in my ward. I know this because everyone else’s clothes are so ugly.

I remember when I was in junior high and I saw people who were still stuck in the 70’s. I felt so sorry for the poor nerds, with their center-parted hair and no bangs and wide-legged pants. I remember even pointing out one “nerd” to my cousin and being shocked to the core when she responded to me, “That isn’t very nice, Darlene. That person is a child of God, too.” (That brings up the subject of “What People are Ready For,” which I will discuss below.) I wasn’t really laughing at the poor woman, just feeling sorry for her inability to realize which decade we were in.

I know I have become that woman. I know that the young people can look at me and tell I grew up in the 80’s. I know because when I go shopping for clothes I can’t find anything that looks attractive to me. These wide legs! These brown colors! It's so--so 70's! When I get dressed for something important (like that paper I presented last week), I don't know what to choose because I am completely at sea about whether something is in style or not. The really scary thing is I am beginning not to care. Someone help me before it is too late!

What People are Ready For
So, when my cousin said that to me, I didn’t feel chastised, nor sorry. I just thought my cousin was weird. I thought she was actually kind of nerdy herself and out of touch. Like my friend who decorated her locker with pictures of Jesus. Just a little “out there,” you know?

But I saw a different side to that one day when someone asked me why I don’t listen to my 80’s modern rock music anymore—well, hardly any of it. I tried to explain to him how I had gone through a sort of conversion to the Spirit during college and had thrown out all of the music that I felt was offensive to the Spirit. It was extra hard to explain it to him because I knew that he still listened to most of the stuff I had decided was offensive, and that by explaining this to him I must appear as if I were judging him.

And, of course, I knew I looked kind of nerdy to him. Like a little “out there.” (I mean, more than just because my clothes were so desperately out of fashion.) For that reason--that I know it makes me look like a kook, I rarely tell people exactly how little TV and movies I can tolerate.

The funny thing is, if someone had preached to me back when I was a teenager about the music I was listening to, or the movies and TV I was watching, I would not only have thought them nerdy, I would have been offended. I NEVER would have felt corrected and then changed my behavior. I was too proud, maybe, or possibly just simply NOT THERE YET. I wasn’t ready.

I’m really glad to be able to look back and see how the Spirit has led me along. I have made adjustments when they were right for me. That gives me a lot of hope about my kids. Hopefully when they start listening to music I don’t like or can’t tolerate, I will be able to remember that they will grow up and someday hear the whisperings of the Spirit about what they are ready for.

That’s what’s a little scary about things like Relief Society lessons, where we all sit around and tell each other ways we can be even more and more righteous (fast twice a month! go to the temple weekly! no TV/homework/cooking on Sundays! no sugar!). Some people are ready for things; some are not. Some are prompted about things; some are not. Pushing our promptings on others never helps them.

What does, then?

Hmmmm. That’s worth another post, another day.