Beautification and other forms of humiliation

In the midst of all the other things I must do, I managed to accomplish steps one (and one point five) of my prep for the November conference today.

Yup, I went to the spa.

You see, I've been desperately needing to make over my neglect and inertia driven "look." I just need to face the fact that I can no longer avoid getting my picture taken. People are asking for my "headshot" for this or that event or publication, and I have run out of excuses. It's time to get with the program. It's time to ditch the little house on the prairie look and join the 21st century.

So, a long time ago, the boyfriend gave me a $150 gift certificate to a hoity toity spa up in the expensive part of my neighborhood. Of course, it was almost a joke gift, as I have never been to a spa, and wouldn't know what to do there if you quizzed me. So, the certificate sat on the mantle for more than a year (nearly two), unused, gathering dust, waiting for a "good time" to come up to use it.

Now the spa in question does the normal spa stuff; hot stone massages, pedicures, manicures, wedding makeup and updos, as well as walk-in useful stuff; like eyebrow shaping, manicures, and haircuts.

So, since the certificate wasn't getting any younger, I decided to use it to get a bit of a appearance improvement.

LOL. Cue the laugh track-- hilarity ensued. Well, a dark comedy, tragic kind of hilarity. But hey, this is 2006, we've got to get our laughs where we can find them.

As for the hair, let's just say after almost three hours, the best the stylist felt she could safely do was give me the same hairstyle I have always had.

Yes, the same shapeless, "Cousin It" look. It took her forever. Snip, snip, snip, look critically, snip, snip. Microscopic bits falling to the floor (and my clothes, and my eyes...). I swear that, once she realized that I am blind without my glasses, she just held the scissors close to my head and made snipping motions. Then, with a flourish, pronounced her masterpiece finished, making loud proclamations as to how much better I looked after her work, while handing me my glasses so I can see no difference whatsoever in the style of my hair except that it is well over a foot shorter than it was when I started.

I am doomed. It is official. Nothing can be done to my hair, because, apparently, any worthwhile cut would require massive amounts of "product" and lengthy efforts with the blowdryer and curling iron daily to look any different than it does. I am stuck with hair from little house on the prairie. They stylist kept suggesting, over and over, that I put my hair in a bun on the back of my head. She kept demonstrating with her own curly, well trained coif (carefully never trying it on my actual hair, which would never submit to such slavish constraints).

"It's a good look for you."

Meaning, "Your hair is a bland, dark curtain of biotin. There is nothing to be done short of shaving it and getting a more attractive wig."

And besides, when I do finally take the bun down (assuming I can actually put the bun up), it will be all wavy.

Yeah. Wavy. Woo hoo.

Sigh. So, that was the hair. On to part 1.5 of the adventure: The eyebrows.

Yes I also got my eyebrows done. Pluck, pluck, smear of warm wax, rip of the tape (which felt exactly like taking off a bandaid). Very earnest young lady inches from my face, smelling faintly of tide, dove, and lilac, staring at my 'brows like she could puzzle out the answer to the meaning of life there. When she finished the less than ten minute process, she sincerely explained the reasoning behind her design choice, as if I were going to complain. They're eyebrows. If you screw them up it only takes a few weeks to grow them back in. So they're still a little bushy, no big deal. At least they're not now going to have to be painted on.

Otherwise, it was kind of low key and nice. It was nice to be treated like a piece of art, like an important piece of work in that young lady's day. It didn't hurt, and in my opinion, they came out pretty well. Crocked, and funky looking behind my glasses (yes, one eyebrow is above my frames, the other is below it. Ha ha, the glasses are straight, so guess who's asymetrical?), but nicely shaped.

It seemed pretty easy to do. I think, should I ever find myself in need of a eyebrow trim, I will try using a bandaid. Can't hurt right?

Why are eyebrows supposed to be a big ouchy deal? It didn't really hurt, it took seconds, and it looks okay (especially since, between my glasses and my bangs, you can't see them). I guess not everyone feels pain the same way. I would prefer the eyebrow thing to the makeup torture that the hairstylist (and all girly girls in my life) insisted I go through.

After the eyebrows, I checked my doo before leaving, and felt that I couldn't honestly pay for something I could have done myself with safety scissors. I asked to have the stylist take some more off the front. "I would like to see more of my face," I said (I am not kidding). Off with the glasses, more snipping, some wispy layers appear... finally I give up.

Following the second phase of the hair debacle (consider it 1.5.1 of the overall adventure), the stylist, sensing my unhappiness (and a potential loss of tip), bustled me into the makeup room for a makeover. What is it with women? They are always trying to slather me with makeup. And the stylist (and her posse) were no different. They could not resist. "You have good bones." "You need to bring out your eyes." Which means, in reality, "You are just one of those people that needs to be painted in some foul smelling goo in order to avoid fading into the background. No, seriously, put on the eyeliner, I can't see you."

So I got heavily painted in flesh colored "moisturizer," pink powder on the "apple" of my cheeks (because, I guess, there are other places to put it), three different colors of eyeshadow (uh, does no one remember the glasses?), and some really gluey, shiny, thick lip stuff that exactly matches the color of my existing lips. Seriously, no difference, except now the color extends to my teeth.

Meanwhile, all the women in the room ooo'd and ahh'd over the remarkable painted transformation.

What could I do? I cooed and fawned and tried not to seem in a hurry to leave and shower. So grateful for the laborious ministrations, another ugly duckling turned into a swan, off I went, stinking of strange hair product (hypo-allergenic my ass), sporting itchy, smelly makeup (yikes, is it supposed to come off in stripes like that?!).

I could not get home soon enough.

I mean it. By the time I got home and washed the stuff off, I already had hives and red, itchy, burning spots. The aveda conditioner they used on me (shampure, sham-pure?! Are you kidding me?) absolutely reeks, and after washing and conditioning my hair several times, I still can't get that smell out. My boyfriend complained of the scent in the car with the windows down. What is in that stuff?

So in the end what do I have? Did I accomplish anything?

Yes, my hair got cut. It isn't the cut I really was hoping for, it isn't even the cut I wanted, but I can live with it. Frankly it is a shorter version of what I already had, so at least I know what to do with it in public. It is not a different color, it is not permed or bobbed short, so it'll do. ANd it was free.

And my eyebrows look more human than cromagnon. And I have officially been to a spa. So, altogether, it was good (and free).

Next, I need to do something about the eyes and teeth. To that end I am going to replace my glasses with something more modern (and maybe, dare I hope, more flattering), and get my teeth whitened and pulled in with some invisaligns (thanks book advance).

Speaking of books, I need to get back to work so I can continue to improve my street cred and make all this timewasting primping worth it. I am actually starting to see the light through the trees, so that is a relief.

And speaking of work, anyone have a pda they would be willing to overnight to me so I can do screenshots of the Sync Center in Vista?

That would be sooper...

Arrghh, why am I so lazy?

So here I sit
writing in my blog
when I have work to do.

Real work
that means something
that others are waiting for.
And instead
I watch TV
Make a cup of tea,
maybe do some laundry.

What is wrong with me?
As deadlines loom,
when I should be getting alarmed
I can't even come up with the energy
to be concerned.
I dream about it
But I can't seem to move.

I hate procrastinating.
I hate the sense of being out of control
out of time
of having to explain or make excuses
yet still, I do it.
Why?

Things I must do--
Work on material that I will be doing in front of hundreds of people in Las Vegas in November
(but the presentations are due mid-Oct).
Re-write/update a 50 page chapter about Vista for this guy, David Pogue, by next week.
Keep up with material required to do Technical Review of MS MOC courseware on Sharepoint Services 3.0 (including remember how to log into the outsourcing company's web site).
Keep up with material that will be necessary for the 800 page book I will probably have to write starting when I get back from Las Vegas.
Clean the house and finish research, scheduling duct sanitizing so we can turn on the heat when it gets cold a few weeks from now.
Force the frickin' car dealership's general manager to remember that he promised to fix the brakes on my car.

Instead, I am here
idly posting.
Argh.
I think I really, really want to fail.
I just want to be told that I have lost this race,
that I played this game so poorly
that I might as well stop now
and maybe start over later.

Meanwhile, the weather outside is gorgeous.
Incongrously lovely, while inside I am plagued by doubt and despair.
I resent not being able to just go outside. Maybe mulch my weeds.

Just one of those things

So I'm sitting here, glued to the computer, about an hour after bed time, just tiddling about.

I had read a wonderful email from a former classmate (several times removed, she was in a different sorority, but we were in the same year, and lived on the same campus. You know, we saw each other in the cafeteria sometimes...), all sentimental and nostalgic about how she'd gotten a job at the school we once went to (she went there far longer than I did), and how the ghosts of her memories haunted her.

I was tempted to post back about how I had once felt that way, about fifteen years ago. How I would wander around campus, missing my old chums, wondering where everyone was, and why I was even there. Now, twenty years after I left (give or take), I return to that campus to enjoy the silence, appreciate the architecture, study in the library (I still can't be as productive anywhere but where I created grand and silly opuses as a teen). I've created new memories there, made new friends. I go there to detox, to get work done, to smell the air (and listen to the geese flying south in the pre-autumn silence of the town).

I didn't tell her though. Because our memories were so different. Because she spoke fondly of people I never knew, never met. Because she simply got to experience so much more of that than I did. She had belonged, done her time, qualified for her nostalgia. I was just a wanna-be that lived so close by I could frequently visit.

It's kind of heartbreaking still that I ran out of money and had to leave college before I could graduate. After all these years I am still devastated. It's as if someone I loved, someone I'd planned for and expected to be a big part of my life, had died unexpectedly. Leaving a big hole, changing the course of my days, of my self completely, and leaving me forever half-finished. People to this day are stunned that I have no degree. They wonder why I don't just finish.

I don't just toss off a degree because it would not be worth it. It would not be the same. Now I am cynical, jaded, critical of the process (now that I have created and taught my own courses, now that I have taught professors how to teach my courses). I can't just get credits to get credits. It was never about that for me. It was the learning experience, whole hog. The people, the classes, the learning, and well, mostly the people. The classmates, the professors. I can teach myself from books or online, I do that all the time. I wanted the experience. I *still* want the experience.

I can't get excited about finishing my degree. That experience closed for me long ago. Now it will just be a stubborn, empty exercise. I will be just be going through the motions. I am too busy, too tired, too distracted, to bother with such a hollow waste of money. I don't even think I'd do it if someone paid me. It would just be more bitter than bittersweet.

But, because time is a bitch, I am getting to watch my classmates, those who got to finish, slowly trickle back to my alma mater, my vacationland, as employees. As, once again, people who unequivocably belong. As I don't, and probably never had. I get to read their heartfelt letters of gentle sorrow, as they cope with working at the place where so many critical memories were made. Like growing up to be a counselor at the camp where you spent the best summers of your life.

Ironically you really can never go back, no matter how easy it is to drive there. The place it once was is gone. And my friend (if I can call her that) is now having to make peace with how the past overlays the present, until soon, current memories will take the edge off those sharp nostalgic images. Then she will become bored, cynical, and jaded about the place, just like everyone does about where they work.

Or maybe you can go back, but not often and not for long. Not unless you are willing to let those old memories fade. She has to work there now. It will, sadly, never be the same in a way the most of us just can't understand.

Of course, I don't know if I count as most of us. I have been haunting the place like a ghost for about twenty years. I never belonged, I never finished, and I just keep getting drawn back; to watch spring rise over the hills, watch summer cook the lawns, and watch autumn drive away the geese. To just appreciate the natural, changing beauty of the place. In a way, it could be that I appreciate it like those who got to graduate never could. To really see it's value, its virtues, and never take it for granted because it's hard to take for granted what you have never quite had. I can't go back to something I never really had, I just keep going back to the place where it almost happened. It's so pretty there, so serene.

I am honored and a little baffled that I was on her mailing list of classmates and friends for her nostalgic email. I am not sure she realizes how sad it makes me that I can not ever, ever commiserate with her. I never had any close relationships or chance meetings with my professors. I don't expect anyone from the past to be coming around the corner. The place has been filled with strangers for decades now. No one I know, no one who knows me. It is a place that makes me feel safe, calm, peaceful, alone. Filled with trees, hills, and wind. It is a place that is a shadow of the campus so filled with potential long ago. It rarely echoes of loss or disappointment anymore. I had to come to terms with that ages ago.

I wish her luck in her attempts to reconcile the past with her current situation. Both she and the school have changed, and I hope that both live up to her expectations.