at least one of my problems

i really like makeup. love it, revel in it, think about it, imagine it in different combinations. not so much in the sense that i wear a lot, like tammy faye baker or dolly parton (although i admire them for the sheer weight their faces have to bear), but in the sense that i just like looking at it and thinking about it. i do feel inordinately pleased when i think my makeup looks good.

it's not the worst of habits. units to support this habit usually run about $15. which is the good news and the bad news, i guess, because that means it's easy to justify getting the new limited edition MAC eyeshadow, even though i already have one that looks a lot like it, and even though, as a result of already basically owning it, i already know it does not suit me at all, but rather makes me look like one of the rejects from the "thriller" video. but then i'm only out fifteen bucks. but then i can get several, and each time there's a new one, and fifteen bucks repeatedly can add up pretty quickly.

my makeup obsession feels a lot like my rainbow obsession of yore, when i was about ten. not just rainbows, but basically any continuous color combinations that looked cool when i would stare and blur my eyes. i would experiment with different combos, in different media (mostly marker or crayon), making designs and then staring at them with my eyes blurred. it's a wonder i didn't end up cross-eyed. i even invented the name of a profession i had decided to be, which in my mind was essentially someone who got to look at different colors all day long: spectrumologist.

now my media have changed, but it's essentially the same relationship. those eyeshadows i can't figure out how to use on my face without looking like i got punched, i don't return because i just swatch it on my hand and tilt my hand back and forth while blurring my eyes.

yesterday i went to a "technique" class sponsored by MAC, where you had to sign up ahead of time by shelling out fifty bucks that would then be put toward MAC products after the class and after your fabulous new makeover. traffic was a bitch, though, and i got there late, and the makeup artist running the class used my late entrance to make a little ribbing joke at me, which was fine. to lighten that blow, he then said, "dig your t-shirt." my t-shirt had a picture of jacques derrida's face and that was all. i don't think i'm too out of bounds for assuming that he just thought the face was cool (it is), without knowing who it was, or what derrida is famous for. but what do i know.

so of course all my MAC classmates wondered what was so great about my t-shirt. after the lesson when we all milled around waiting for our fabulous new makeovers, someone asked me who it was and i embarrassingly said, "oh, it's just a french philosopher named jacques derrida. pretty geeky." and she said, "mmmm." then it turned out that all the fabulous MAC makeup artists (including the one i wanted, a very dark skinned black woman at least 6'5", with hair down to her butt and an extremely athletic figure, and who just seemed so very magnetic for her height, her hair, her ambiguous gender, etc., etc.) were spoken for, and i and some of my classmates would have to wait 45 minutes for our fabulous new makeovers.

i wasn't going to have it! i wanted someone to tell me how to use my beautiful-in-the-pan aqua shimmery eyeshadow so i could get out of that mall! so i managed to flag down a very nice lady named opal, who showed me exactly how to use it, and sold me some brushes and foundation in the process, and who, when she was done with me, was responsible for making me look like a drag queen (in a derrida t-shirt), which made me feel a little guilty for staring at the 6'5" artist and trying to find an adam's apple, but which was very very satisfying because i could then go home and look in the mirror and blur my eyes with pleasure.