My footwear in the two years since I’ve had Ollie has basically been narrowed down to two kinds: either flip flops or Uggs. Yes, I’ll still occaisionally wear heels or cute flats, but I’d say 99% of the time my feet are clad in one of the two. So not sexy or trendy or stylish, but hey, I’m being honest.
In fact, for the past six months, my prego pork sausage toes have been sporting my trusty Jcrew flops or Molly B whale tweenies because wearing anything else has just been downright painful. I wore some strappy wedges out to dinner the other night and by the time I got home my feet were so swollen they looked like that Cher’s son in that movie The Mask. Not pretty.
But now, looking at the ten day forecast, I finally see no 90 degree highs. It’s already September 15th and that means fall is closing in, so it’s about time to say goodbye to flip flops in favor of something a little more seasonably appropriate. Yet packing up my flops every year is kind of like putting away all the Christmas decorations; it depresses me. Not that I’m ready to put away my sandals quite yet and give myself over to winter Sasquatch feet, but I know that day is coming. And soon!
Remember this? When all the Northwestern girls LAX players caught so much flack for wearing flip flops to meet the Prez? Even though I probably wouldn't wear Rainbows The Commander in Chief's pad, I do love my flops!
I have a really weird relationship with my bellybutton. Truth be told, it terrifies me. Something about the fact that it used to be a hole that I was fed through while living in my mom’s stomach, but now it’s sealed and closed and serves no purpose– well, that’s some kind of crazy. Just thinking about it gives me the shivers.
Currently, I can see the outside of my bellybutton for the second time in my life. At 28 weeks pregnant, I think it’s safe to say my navel’s “popped” and I am the proud owner of an outie, not an innie. Which is nice in a way, because I can tell you it’s really really clean (no lint here!), but it’s also kind of scary. My button’s like a finger, only fat and round and a half centimeter long. So I guess not like a finger at all, but like a little nose poking out of my stomach. But a nose without nostrils or a sense of smell…so not really a nose either. I know, it’s like a turkey thermometer, only in my case, my little Thanksgiving bird isn’t done yet…I still have 11 or so more weeks to go. Oh well, whatever it’s “like” — it’s just weird.
AND, ticklish. The other day during my sonogram I laughed like a hyena every time the sono tech ran the Doppler over my little outie. It was frankly embarrassing. I think she thought I actually LIKED her touching my bellybutton, which I certainly did NOT. Truth is, I felt as though I was being electrocuted through my navel. Not a pleasant feeling.
So that’s why I’m thankful to the Japanese author and illustrator, Jun Nanao and Tomoko Hasegawa, respectively. You probably know them for their better known books like, Everyone Poops and The Gas We Pass, but lately, my favorite of their children’s works has been Contemplating Your Bellybutton. It’s probably because I identify with it; for Pete sake, I am devoting an entire blog post contemplating my navel!!!
I'm not kidding, my bellybutton looks JUST like this kid's!!!
Lip balm is one thing I can never have enough of. Seriously. I think my purse eats it or something. Not to mention that I am constantly picking out empty tubes from my dryer — only after realizing the waxy little cylinders have melted all over my clothes. I think over the course of my 31 years, I have probably purchased more lip balm than any other single beauty product.
In fact, my lip balm obsession has spanned the majority of my lifetime. Countless balms have fallen in and out of favor with me. There were Kissing Koolers back in 3rd grade, then my long-lived Bonne Belle LipSmacker phase. Next came basics like Softlips, Blistex, and ChapStick and Burt’s Bees.
After that I entered my Carmex period. This was the longest lasting loyalty to one balm. At one point I couldn’t fall asleep without slathering my lips in enough Carmex to grease a 9X11 cake pan. I even hooked my brother on it and I’ll never forget him sending my mom to Wal-Mart in a fit of chapped desperation to get him (as stated on his list): “carmex in a tube.” We laughed hysterically when my mother came home empty handed because, as she put it, “the man at the CD counter didn’t know the band I was referring to.” HAHAHAHA. Anyway, my Carmex love faded when I heard the greasy little tubs were filled with rat poison — not true I’m sure, but hey, I’m a fickle consumer.
So for the last couple years I’ve bounced around — one day I’ll be smearing my kisser with Rosebud lip salve and the next I’ll be puckering up with leftover nipple balm from when I was breastfeeding (hey, when you’re desperate, you’ll make due with just about anything). But finally, I think I found the Holy Grail of lip lube: Alba’s Un-Petroleums. They are great! They have SPF 18 and no weird chemicals made from stuff like oil or tortured bunny hides. I’m guessing this love-affair will last a long long time!
Remember these babies? Kissing Koolers? They smelled good enough to eat. And I'll admit, as a kid, sometimes I did just that.
Sometimes it’s the little things in life, ya know? Take for instance, my love affair with the Q-tip. Those little cottony swabs are one tiny object that I truly can’t live without. Every day for as long as I can remember, I’ve used them. At this point, they’re as necessary for me as toilet paper (maybe more-so in a pinch). Each morning when I get out of the shower, Q-tips are the first thing I reach for after my towel. There’s just something about swabbing out my ear canal that makes everything seem A-OK with the world.
I don’t know what it is about clean ears that makes me so happy. In fact, everywhere I go – I bring them. If I don’t, I go kind of crazy. For instance, if I were to be trapped on a desert island for a month and someone said I could have Q-tips or deodorant, I’d totally deal with BO and take the tips. Q-tips and wine? I’d go sober.
Chances are, you’re the same way. I don’t think there are many people out there that can’t say they don’t love cleaning their ears — or that they are even kind of obsessive about it. (Am I right?!) Isn’t that kind of strange? I definitely don’t have the same sense of satisfaction every time I wash my hands or remove my eye makeup as I do when I swab my drums. Why though are we all ear canal obsessed? Ah, the mysteries of life!
You may think it strange that I am thanking a nursing pad company since I’m not currently breastfeeding, but I just had to share. I bought LilyPadz when I was nursing Ollie for their marketed purpose — so my boobs didn’t leak milk all over the place when I went out to dinner or to a wedding or wherever. They’re basically silicone pasties you wear on your ta-tas; a simple concept strippers have known about for decades now.
So it was great. When I was breastfeeding Ollie (something, incidentally, I would recommend to all new moms sheerly for the weight loss — I lost 40 pounds in two weeks while eating like a blue whale and never going to the gym!), I never had any unsightly wet spots on my shirt that made people think I had a gland problem in my boobs or leaky milk jugs. But even after I was done nursing and my rack regained normalcy, I actually ordered another pair of the ‘Padz just so I could burn all my ridiculously uncomfortable strapless bras.
Because pre-Padz, if I wanted to wear a sleeveless dress or tank, I’d have to break out the old Band-Aids for my boobs if I didn’t feel like enduring the torture of my strapless bras. But now, I just slap on my LilyPadz and am good to go bra-less if the mood for being au-natural strikes. They’re perfect!
Just in case you've ever wondered how to apply pasties (or Lilypadz). Too much information? Sorry.
The other day my friend Ingrid was shopping at Bed Bath & Beyond and found this unique product: Booty Pop Panties. First things first, I want to commend the Arlington BB&B for truly taking the “Beyond” portion of their name seriously. I mean, where else can you get a down comforter, toilet plunger, wire whisk, and ass-enhancing panties all under one roof?! Now that’s a versatile product offering, if I do say so.
Secondly, what an amazing invention! Granted, I’d probably be more likely to purchase “Instant Cankles” or “Thunder Thigh Tape” before I bought Booty Pop (I have plenty of booty — especially pregnant), but I like the rationale behind these undies. I mean, you have to give props to the two women that founded this ass-enhancing empire: they are trying to make fat butts sexy! Genius!
And yes, I know this isn’t a new concept — Baby Got Back was released like, what? 25 years ago? But since then skinny, anorexic-looking assless women have been vying for world domination. Even with plastic surgery and the rise of butt enhancing procedures, it still seems like the assless have the upper hand when it comes to the media portrayal of women. Because seriously, most people I know that would benefit from this product are men, but then again, maybe that’s why the most popular size seems to be an XL. But you have to admire Booty Pop’s creators furthering a great cause; anyone that’s trying to make ghetto booties cool for everyone is OK by me!
I love that BB&B carried mostly XLs! You just KNOW that's because more guys are buying them than women!
When I think that Stacey and I considered doing a blog called “365 days without makeup!” I cringe. It actually makes me feel physically ill. Not that I cake it on like a Miss America contestant everyday, but still, nary a day goes by where I’m not wearing at least five products on my face (blush, lipstick, mascara, eye shadow and of course concealer).
Sometimes it’s even more than that. When I went to the Grammys, I counted 17 different substances on my face. And I had a rather good time shoving it all on there. But the thing I love the most about makeup is being able to paint away the flaws. Had a very small bump on your face that you decided to pinch until it became a volcano of grossness? Just shove some coverup on it and it’s as good as gone! Unsightly tattoo got you down? Slap on some liquid skin and bare it all.
My concealer of choice is by MAC and it is like miracle paint. This one winter a few years back, I had what I like to call a flesh eating rash. I used to put it in my introductions. Hello my name is Karin and I have a flesh eating rash on my face. My former intern Ashley can attest to this, as those were the first words I ever said to her. Turns out this rash was really just a case of insanely bad dry skin, but still, it was gross. That’s where the MAC concealer came in. I just smoothed that mush on there and the rash vanished!
Confession: wearing makeup is one of my favorite things about being female. When I think that men just have to wear their zits for the world to see, it makes me want to cry. That sounds really really shallow, but let’s just call it empathy. Lucky for me, I have the right chromosomes and the right concealer!
These are really the only men who get away with wearing makeup, so clearly if I was male I would be a WWF fighter.
I have had the same guitar for 16 years, which implies that I am good at playing the guitar. I am not. I kind of suck. While I have owned a guitar for a decade and a half, I haven’t played it that much, even though I toted it around the globe with me. It was there when I lived in Tokyo, there when I worked in Belgium, and now stands proudly in my living room in DC.
I remember sitting in my parents’ backyard with other choir dorks belting out “Uncle John’s Band,” while I strummed away on the guitar in high school. If I had just kept up that act, I bet I would be pretty good and have mastered doing a B chord without grimacing from pain. But I didn’t. In fact, the number one thing that has kept me from being good at the guitar has been vanity. I just hate chopping off all my nails so I can strum away. Isn’t that sad? It’s like a girl not wanting to be a ballerina so she can have beautiful feet. Or not reading because you don’t want to strain your eyes. Basically, I am a narcissistic gal who plays bad guitar.
But that’s all going to change. I’m turning 30 in 19 days and I think it’s time I can embrace short nails and strum my days away. Or at least a few minutes a week. Maybe I can increase my repertoire from three Indigo Girls songs and a Joni Mitchell tune I sang at camp, to well, a whole Indigo Girls album. I’ll finally become the folk guitarist I should have blossomed into in 1995. It’s never too late!
Here I am looking rather horrific with my prize guitar. I stink at playing it but man do I love it!
To be perfectly honest, I rarely go anywhere without makeup. I would never be one of those au naturale girls that goes around without cover-up or lip gloss. In fact, I usually wear full eye makeup to the beach and blush to the gym. But my last few weeks — going to dumps, hosting poorly planned yard sales, and shopping at Home Depot has hardly seemed like a good excuse to waste a full face of makeup on these very humble tasks. So I feel like I’ve let my “I’m a creature of darkness — I don’t go out into daylight without at least slapping on some bronzer” persona slip in favor of a much more makeup-free identity.
However, today I decided enough is enough. Living in a small town is excuse enough to always go out looking presentable. I ran into yet another aquaintance running errands while I looked like a bag lady to let this go on any longer. So tonight, before Grey and I left the house to go to dinner, I quickly applied a little of the Body Shop’s matte face primer pre-foundation and I was immediately glad. I don’t know what it is about this product, but it makes all your other makeup you paint on top of it go on like butter.
Plus, even though I love the heat and humidity due to its skin plumping properties, I don’t like the fact that it makes my skin look like shiny mess. Yet, putting on this primer — even in this extreme heat (it was 95 again today!) — makes my skin as matte as opaque panty hose. You need to try it!
I googled "matte face makeup" and this is one of the images I found. Just had to share. WTF?! Moor-riah! What next?!
Ugggggghhh. It’s so hot in Washington. I feel like I live on a new planet, called planet sunshine and pain. All I want to do is bum around naked in a swimming pool and eat ice cubes. But I don’t want to scare anyone and I am short one large watering hole. So, instead I am writing this while sitting in front of my air conditioning unit, drinking water and trying to avoid rapid motion.
The funny thing is, while I am happy to bellyache with everyone else in Washington, I have lived in far hotter places. Cities where there were a zillion more people, tons of pollution and painfully crowded public transportation. Ever take the Tokyo subway during rush hour in August? It’s one of those “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” experiences.
What really put some hair on my chest, as the saying goes, was living in Hong Kong. Not only is HK in a valley where pollution can’t help but being trapped in, it’s also sooo humid that this very straight haired gal pretty much had a perm. And that sweat mustache that I didn’t even get after running 26 miles? Well I had one every single day in the spring and summer. Yes, I rocked a goatee of perspiration and had an 80s perm.
It wasn’t pretty. But it was really good for my skin – like a constant spa treatment. And that’s what I have to keep telling myself as I trudge around in work clothes in these triple digits. I may smell like a compost pile by the end of the day, but wow are my pores ever clear. Bring on the heat wave!
My friend Akgun and I roasting during a Hong Kong summer. It was tough but it made me strong! Plus, the skyline was pretty, even in a 108 degrees.
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