Errands

So, are you also feeling a bout of “senioritis” at work lately? Like, duuuude, it’s almost the winter break, I’m here in body only, my mind is with egg nog and ice skates and Jewish Christmas (movie & Asian food) land?

Where my body did get to go yesterday was some pretty wonderful and fanciful places. My temp job is downtown SF off of Union Square – this is, to use a terribly evocative phrase, Ground Zero for SF shopping. The (fake) enormous Christmas tree, every department store you can imagine, and jewelry stores that make me stop and ogle just the mastery and beauty of what the earth produces.

Yesterday, we needed some fancy ribbon to wrap the fancy presents for the fancy clients of the fancy place where I’m working. So, I was asked to go down to Britex fabric store. I’d been there once last week, and felt like a kid walking into FAO Schwartz. Colors and patterns and buttons, oh my! And yesterday was no different. I felt like saying “Thank you, Mood!” on my way out. I found a gorgeous double sided satin crimson ribbon and walked slowly out of the store, stopping by the display of beaded and lace appliqués for wedding dresses, and some that would make any drag queen’s costume sparkle with glamour ;)

After returning the ribbon to my boss, she applied it to a wreath and asked me to take it across the street to the hair salon that the “big” boss goes to. I’d looked up this salon last week, just out of curiosity as I was logging in contacts into Outlook, and the website says they do free haircuts for volunteer models. So, I put my name in. But yesterday, when I was there, I mentioned that I’d seen the invitation on the website, and the woman asked me to write my name and contact info down – so, looks like I may get a fancy haircut sometime soon too!

Now, lest you think that I’m in the lap of luxury, the times when I was at work, I’m in their library cataloguing all of their books… They have one that looks like it’s out of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast! So, it wasn’t all joy, and in the skirt I was wearing, I wasn’t really feeling getting down on the floor to the bottom shelves.

Now, lest you think I’m ungrateful, I really hope I’m not. I gave my boss a bottle of wine (which was given to me by the people I babysit for) as a thank you for throwing this work my way. And as I’ve said before, I know that not all temp jobs are like this one – and I’m truly grateful for it, and for the people who work there.

So, that interruption aside, will you let me gush a little more? Indulge me, the poor student who got thrown a bone by the Universe? :)

In the afternoon, I was asked to go pick up the gifts from Neiman Marcus and Macy’s. These are fancy presents for the big boss to give out. And while I’m waiting for the makeup counter lady to get all the things on my list, I get (easily) coerced into letting a makeup person slather me with foundation and some blush.

Sure, my skin looked flawless, but it also looked so fake. I’m a makeup wearer. Dyed in the wool MAC fan (my mom took me to the original MAC store on Christopher Street in NYC for my 14^th birthday for a makeover – I was later told at school that I’d be remembered as the girl who wore too much purple eyeshadow) ;P But, needless to say, I’ve worn a lot of makeup of different kinds, and though I looked like a china doll, it covers up all that is there. The freckles that appeared on the top inch of my forehead after I got badly sunburned while snorkeling the coral reef in Cairns, Australia in 2006. It blistered and was all bad – when one half of your face is in the water, there’s still one half exposed to sun – be warned. They’re age-spots, or sun spots, and they sometimes make me worry what they’ll look like when I’m older – how much “worse” they’ll get. There is the increasing crepe-yness of my eye lids, and she doused on a ton of concealer under my eyes.

And, I felt fake. It was fine – it wasn’t a day ruiner by any means(!), but it helped me to reflect that I don’t want to be like this 60 year old woman with caked on foundation to look like she’s 20. Because even me, 30, I don’t look like I’m 20 – and really, I’m cool with it. My eyes are crepe because I’m alive and healthy and going through the world, not sequestered from it behind a masque of anti aging. My forehead is dotted with freckles (that no one else can see by the way!) because I was on an adventure in f’ing Australia.

I’m all for makeup, enhancing my looks, playing around – my face was my first canvas in many ways. But, I still want to be Molly, with my entire history.

I walked out of Macy’s with a few free gifts they threw in for me too, and back at work, wiped off some of the foundation, and saw again my face, not “what I want you to see.” What I actually want you to see is that I am many things – young, yes; lived-in, yes; happy – well, how about that? – yes.

I got to be surrounded by beauty on my errands yesterday, fabric and fashion galore – but the very best moment all day, was when, in Macy’s, a gay manboy at the Benefit counter said to me, “This (insert hand gesture up and down) is really working for you. You look great.” As I warm up to myself, it shows, in how I hold myself, present myself, and choose to acoutrement myself. This really is working for me.