my life in makeup, a misguided journey.

aU nAtuRaL. this morning my mind was full of random memories and trains of thought. like when i was putting on my makeup (which i did kneeling on the bedroom floor, using the tiny ass mirror on my compact, frantically searching for all the brushes and products and whatnot i had thrown haphazardly into my yoga bag for tonight's class, with no lights on because, well, i was running late and figured the time to go over and turn on the light and then the time to go back and turn it off when i was done would just be too much) i could not help but think about the very first "how to put on makeup" lesson i received. it was elementary school, around this time of year, in fact, and i'm guessing something about the april morning sunshine and the sound of kids arriving at school across the street from my apartment helped bring this memory to mind, and we were having one of those career day fair type things when assorted parents and community members were paraded through to empart their knowledge upon us and hopefully inspire us to be great things when we grew up (at this point i had moved past my phase of wanting to grow up to be mary magdalene, had survived a long-lived fascination with becoming an archaelogist/paleontologist which i had asserted in an essay on the topic that i could do because "even though i'm a girl, i can be anything i want to be. my mom told me so," and was currently considering stardom/acting, the law, and medicine). the makeup lesson came from a mrs. cunningham who worked for elizabeth grady, had a daughter mary who was a year older than me and a daughter kelly who was a year younger, and who wore her makeup like today might be the very last chance she got. mrs. cunningham, with her overly painted face (you know the type: the orange line of foundation, the obvious layer of powder, the green green eyeshadow caked and caught in the creases of the eyelids, the black gunky mascara, the thick black eyeliner, the maroon cheeks, the bright red lipstick), told us that there was only one rule we needed to know about makeup: THE TRICK IS TO MAKE IT LOOK LIKE YOU ARE NOT WEARING ANY. yep, i learned from a pro. in other words, don’t judge me too harshly if i look like shit, it’s not my fault, it’s mrs. cunningham's.