KirstenL4W

This is just awesome - I’ve seen it mentioned all over the internets today so I had to share.

Now that I’ve wasted far too much time putting that collage together, I think I’ll write a post on cosmetics. Makeup. The sort of thing that girls are supposed to live for, and not want to let anyone see them without.

I wore makeup to work the other day, which is a rarity for me. My sleep is far too valuable to me to give up in the name of mascara. But the other day I noticed a zit just under my nose, in that tender divet that goes from the nose to the upper lip. It was red and ugly, so I dug around my makeup drawer and found the concealer. Then, as these things go, I had to powder the area to set the concealer, which led to putting powder foundation on my entire face. Which was then too pale, since I evened out all the redness. So then I had to put on some eye makeup. Mascara and carefully selected shadows to make it look like I hadn’t put too much effort into my look. I ended up looking like a circus clown.

At least, it felt that way. What I really looked like was a way too pale redhead with minimal eye makeup on and no color to the lips, since I chose basic chapstick instead of lipstick. I felt like the lipstick would have been too much.

I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with makeup. I generally like the way it makes me look. I love buying the shit, for some odd reason. Throw in some free samples and I’m a bit of a sucker. I’m not particularly fond of wearing it, since I can’t rub my eyes. I’m not all that great at putting it on - anything beyond the basic shadow/mascara combo and I just can’t get it right. Well, it comes out nice on one eye, but I can’t replicate that on the other eye. And I hate the fact that I can’t just crash without washing it off, lest I wake with a faceful of zits and major raccoon eyes.

I started out like most other girls. When I started having a bit of pocket money and the independence to be at the mall unsupervised, my friends and I would carefully select what we wanted from the Wet N Wild display at the drugstore. At 99 cents, we got the most bang for our buck - not that it went far, since that stuff was utter crap. When we had a bit more earning power, we moved on to Bonne Belle, especially the coveted Lip Smackers roll-on lip gloss. And who could forget those ginormous compacts with 101 eye colors in them? Ah, memories. I think makeup was most fun when we were in middle school, not that we knew much what we were doing with it at that point.

As I went through high school, college, and my early working years, I’d mostly wear makeup, choosing a simple, neutral look for everyday and the same makeup applied with a heavier hand for evening. I learned pretty quickly what worked on me (variations of flesh and taupe tones) and shunned all else - unless it came in a free sample, of course. Anything with too much red made me look tired, and anything with too much blue/gray seemed to make the bags under my eyes worse. I didn’t experiment much.

Eventually, I stopped wearing makeup every day. I didn’t have the stamina to put it on every morning, and I didn’t feel pretty enough to want to wear it. I still have quite a bit of it, with my most recent makeup buying spree happening before my wedding. I still don’t have the skillz to apply it like a professional, at least not so both eyes look the same. Sometimes I think I’d like to wear makeup if Mister and I go out in the evening, but then I remember that there’s the whole routine of taking it off before bed, which stops me from wearing it (out of sheer laziness, or efficiency, if you will. I’m saving myself steps and time both before and after going out). I still love playing with the testers at the makeup counter, still covet a whole cosmetic tackle box full of product, and still get giddy at the thought of a free gift with purchase.

What’s a girl to do?

I should probably be writing reviews of books I finished long ago and are back to collecting dust on my bookshelf. I have a few of those reviews started and in draft mode, but haven’t found the motivation to finish them, even though for the most part I enjoyed the books. But I wanted to get this one done asap, since someone has been patiently waiting for me to actually read the book first. Now that I’ve finished it, here’s the review.

With a fondness for footnotes and a bizarre fetish for linoleum that has not gone unnoticed by other reviewers, Rob Kroese (aka “Diesel”), Mercury Falls tells the story of the impending Apocalypse, the attempts by various factions to manipulate the result in their favor, and the otherworldly bureaucracy that has governments around the world green with envy. Christine, a reporter who covers all things having to do with the end of times, gets caught up with Mercury, an angel who’d rather make snowmen than do the job he’s contractually obligated to do.

It might seem a bit off to use movies as talking points when reviewing a book, but to be honest I haven’t read any of the books or authors that other reviewers have mentioned. So I’ll stick to what I know.

Dogma, the Kevin Smith movie that explores a heavenly loophole, is similar in tone to this book. So is War, Inc., the John Cusack movie that exploits the notion that war is an event manufactured for profit. These two movies were constantly in mind as I read this book (and it helps that I enjoyed these movies). I did have a bit of a hard time keeping some of the other angels and who they were working for straight, but that is only the fault of this reader and not the book. What I did love was the Antichrist, who also happens to be a pathetic loser, the unique take on how the Apocalypse is supposed to go down, the impossible bureacracy involved, and the importance of linoleum.

So now that I’ve shown you all how much I suck at writing book reviews, I hope that you are somehow convinced that Mercury Falls not only does NOT suck, but is actually quite an entertaining read, and that you should read it. Then when you’re done, write a better review than I did.

My poor, neglected little blog. Every day I think, Today’s the day! The day that I’ll finally write that blog post. I don’t know what to write about, but I’ll get a post up, somehow.

Yet it never happens. About once a week I force myself to write something, anything, so as not to neglect my readers, my fans, my adoring public. Ok, that’s going a bit too far. Why don’t I write more often?

Life gets in the way. That’s an easy excuse. We all have jobs and family that keep us from being on our blogs as often as we’d like.

There’s nothing worth writing about. That’s another easy excuse. It’s hard to come up with something witty and original. Being a perfectionist, I have a hard time writing for writing’s sake. Every time I sit down at the computer, I want to write that perfect post. You know the one. It’s the post that leaves you feeling exhilarated when you hit that “publish” button. The one where you eagerly check your stats every hour to see who’s reading it and who has commented on it. The one that you keep going back to so you can re-read it. I want every post to be like that.

I have a hard time writing about the day to day of my life - not because it’s hard to write about, but it bores me. You’d see the same posts, day after day. I don’t write about work, so that cuts out a huge part of my day. I don’t really write too much about my husband and what goes on between us, because he prefers that I keep that a bit more private. And I don’t write about my feelings so much because my husband prefers that I talk to him rather than read how I’m feeling on this blog, so that’s another post idea that won’t really be happening. That leaves two kinds of posts: observations and themed.

Observation posts can be easy to write, if when observing something I immediately write a post in my head then get myself to a computer before the inspiration for it is gone forever. That’s not always easy.

Themed posts, such as my On The Internet or Bedtime Stories posts, can be easy to write but without much in between, they will get boring - as if I have nothing else to say.

I want to offer a bit more of myself in this blog. I’d love for this blog to get little bit bigger (not too big, though), but I just don’t know how to do that right now. I don’t know how to do everything that I want to do.

How do you make your blog what you want while staying firmly planted in real life? What would you like to do with your blog if you could?