...across the room to protest....

"I don't plan to grow old gracefully. I plan to have face-lifts until my ears meet."   Rita Rudner

I went for a walk in one of our parks recently and just as I was about to start walking a lady drove up in a very fancy sporty car and parked right beside mine.  When I go for my morning walk I don't wear any make-up, simply run my fingers through my hair, and dress in some sort of comfortable work out clothes and shoes.  You can imagine my surprise when this women got out of her car dressed in three inch heels, tight skirt, hair and make-up perfectly arranged and applied to spend some time in the park exercising her dog!  Each to his/her own though, right?  I couldn't help but take a closer look at her and realized that I knew this person but had not seen her for probably ten years or more.  At her age I would expect to see some changes after ten years but not the kind I saw that day.  I'm sure her lips are twice the size they were at one time and honestly I don't think her face moved at all when she smiled at me other than her lips looked even bigger!!

"We are in this awful youth-driven thing where everybody needs to look 30 at 60, but I'm not fiddling about with myself." British actress Emma Thompson

 

Later that day I was amazed again as I did some business with a young lady who had obviously been distressed by her bra size and now had two extremely firm, unmovable breasts spilling out of her top and pointing directly at me!  I noticed them before I saw her face.  She probably spent all her money on her breasts and had nothing left over for her lips so she just simply decided to enlarge the circumference with a $7.95 lip pencil.  A brown lip pencil.  It was all I could do to control my impulse to take the used tissue in my purse and start rubbing it off! Honestly!  Could it be that she looked in the mirror after applying that dark circle under her nose and say "THAT'S perfect, and just the way I like me to look today!"  How can it be?!

"Where lipstick is concerned, the important thing is not color, but to accept God's final word on where your lips end." Jerry Seinfeld

I like to experiment with make-up and hair like most women but I feel sad that men and especially women take such drastic measures to change their appearances.  Who are we listening to and why?  Who is to say that my lips are too small, my nose too big, my breasts too small?  And do I have to redecorate my house every year because this year the colours are orange, purple and putty and last years monochromatic greys are old and tired looking?  Who says everybody should wear the same hair style; the same heel height; the same skirt length?When do we just simply say "This is what I like" and be happy and confident with our own preferences and ability to choose what is suitable for us.

After all that, I think just for today I shall leave my face completely NAKED in honour of Elayne's Day of Protest!!