Post-mortem cosmetic needs

I want all the self conscious girls who try to hide who they are with makeup

You know it’s the girl with a frown with the tight pants

I really want to shake up

–Louis XIV/Finding Out True Love Is Blind

 

The other night, a couple of us were talking about the importance of looking good while dead or dying. It’s not the first time I’ve discussed how I want to look while dying or dead with a girlfriend, and it probably won’t be the last. It’s something a lot of us think about with some regularity. Women often have very particular ideas about what we want to look at the end of our lives. Maybe men do, too, but they don’t typically wear cosmetics so they probably aren’t as picky as we are.

At my grandmother’s viewing, my aunt had her brother and me act as lookouts so she could fix her mother’s make up in the coffin without being busted by the funeral director. She just didn’t think her mother looked like herself with the wrong shade of lipstick on, and she was right.

My friend Mollie wants to attend her own funeral wearing tan fishnets, lipstick  and false eyelashes. Presumably also some sort of dress, but that was not her priority. She’s got a cat suit that would make quite an impression at a viewing. I’ll suggest that.

I want a bob and black eyeliner to be maintained for me if I’m ever physically unable to keep them up myself. If hair is a problem, you can shave my head and put dramatic scarves on me but the eyes have got to be done.  Have me cosmetically tattooed if no one wants to come over every day and do it. It’s not that I’m vain about my looks in general, but I feel very strongly about having eyeliner on.  Always. People won’t know me without it. While you’re doing the eyeliner, prop a book up on me somewhere too. After I’m dead, send me to the crematorium with my eyeliner on. I won’t care after that.

Is this an insane thing to worry about? Well, it would be if you actually spent time worrying. I enjoy thinking about it.  To me, it’s sort of reassuring to know that my friends know how I expect to look so they can yell at my caregivers if they fall short of perfection. Sort of like Shirley MacLaine in “Terms of Endearment” when poor cancer-stricken Debra Winger doesn’t get her pain meds on time.

 

There’s nothing like a big yelling scene in the hospital to make me feel loved!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Agents of fortune

The fates are vicious and they’re cruel
You learn too late you’ve used
Two wishes like a fool.

–Hedwig and the Angry Inch/Wicked Little Town

 

Destiny, destiny, no escaping that for me.

–Young Frankenstein

 

It’s so tempting to believe in destiny isn’t it? If you believe that everything is all figured out ahead of time then there isn’t much left for you to do. You just have to kind of kick back and wait for your destiny to roll out.

I mean…what if I’m not destined to write this blog post?  Will a panther leap out and devour me just as I hit the “publish” button to keep me from doing it? If I really believed in a predetermined destiny, I probably wouldn’t make too much of an effort to sit down every day and write something. Or maybe I would because it would be my fate. But wouldn’t that mean some people were also destined to be fat and lazy and not get their blog posts written?

Could I just find that out now, because it would save me some angst about my diet in general  and about finishing this blog post in particular. Thanks.

Do you suppose the   Calvinists used  panthers to enforce predestination, because how cool would that be? A really cool deity would have thought of that.

Believe it or not, I haven’t been drinking. I was just wondering about the fates after listening to the Breeders on my way to work the other day. This is often what happens when I wonder about stuff. Nothing productive, just Calvinist Panthers.

 

And yes, Calvinist Panthers would be a great band name.

 

Is coming up with good band names generally considered a productive way to spend one’s free time?

 

 

PS

Do I really believe in some sort of predestination? Short answer? Logically no, but there are definitely some things that feel like fate.

Do I believe in serendipity? Yes. Very much so.

Serendipity and doubt.

 

Which, coincidentally is a good band name. Not a great one.

 

 

 

The name game redux

 

It isn’t what they say about you, it’s what they whisper.

– Errol Flynn

 

I don’t care what anybody says about me as long as it isn’t true.

-Truman Capote

 

One thing people used to whisper about me?

A name, which I learned after the fact when the person who gave me the name  met me, liked me,  and apologized. Since I didn’t exactly dress to impress in those days (college) it didn’t surprise me that there would be whispered comments about how I looked. I looked eccentric. Sometimes eccentrically slutty. I went out a lot, and with exotic looking guys. It did surprise me how mean the name was, and how many people used it.

The whispered name was “I Dream of Jeannie the Whore of Babylon.”

It’s definitely one of the more creative insults ever used against me.

This is what I looked like at the time, so it’s not like it was entirely inaccurate, at least superficially:

Lake

I’m the one in the middle, with the fetching side-ponytail and torn fishnets. The “I Dream of Jeannie” part of the nickname came from my fondness for the ponytail,often worn on the top of my head. One college friend used to call me Pebbles because of the ‘tail.

Note the Babylonian next to me. I was not, for the record, his whore. We never even dated. Technically, he was not Babylonian, but Libyan. But I did go out a lot, and never with American guys.  It might have been a Lebanese, Saudi, Kuwaiti, Egyptian, Iranian, Italian or any other slightly brown skinned male with an accent.

Why?

Well partially because I have a thing for dark hair, skin and eyes. But that is not why I dated them all but exclusively for years.

It is definitely not because I’m not as fond of pale skinned, blue or green eyed American men as any other flavor. I’m a 31 flavors girl when it comes to …never mind. Any way.  I like American men as much as any other kind. Except Northern Italians.  That’s another story though. It has nothing to do with disliking Americans, either.

The biggest reason I didn’t hang out with American guys is because not one single one ever asked me out.  In fact, after High School, it wasn’t until I was well into my 30’s that an American asked me out. I even ended up marrying one. I’m not sure what it was about me that was so off-putting to my fellow Americans. One classmate, who seemed to have a pretty major crush on me, said I was scary,  and refused to clarify his comment.

I am the most un-terrifying person on the planet,  or at least I think so. I think he was kidding. Right?

I’ve always wondered what caused the utter lack of interest. Guys from other places never had any trouble asking me out. I was cute, in a wacky way. Not dumb. Funny, if shyness didn’t keep me from opening my mouth.

Not at all popular with my fellow Americans though.

Maybe they thought my attire was a sign of Communism.

That must be it.

Communism.