In Which I Attempt To Spring Clean & Am Thwarted By Motherly Advice

May 20, 2014 / Ally Bean / 22 Comments

Order out of chaos.

It’s that time of year. Spring. And my half of our clothes closet is a mess. As usual. Just ask Zen-Den.

So I’ve decided to be strong, be decisive, be ruthless… and sort through my clothes. And accessories. Because it’s not doing me any good having all this stuff piled up hither and yon.

I crave a calm, organized closet. Angst-free.

Encourage or discourage?

But here’s the issue, when I start to organize anything in our home I hear my late mother’s voice telling me three of her stock phrases. The woman was nothing if not consistent. And cautious.

Waste not, want not.
Be careful.
Think it through.

So then after acknowledging that these phrases are bouncing around inside my mind, I become so filled with doubt that I do not do that which I set out to do. And the closet… or the basement… or the junk drawer remain messy.

Stumbling over the past.

It’s the oddest thing. I can let go of outdated ideas with ease. I can move on from rotten relationships as needed. But when it comes to objects that I’ve bought or inherited, I have difficulty deciding what to do with them.

Begging the question: how do you un-program that which a well-intentioned mother who grew up during the Depression programmed into you?

There must be an override switch somewhere, right?

Shopping For Make-Up: Plain Jane Vs. The Kabuki Woman

July 23, 2013 / Ally Bean / 25 Comments

I’m not a fan of make-up. I think that the stuff is overrated, but I bow to social custom and use a little of it*.

I believe that for me THE NATURAL LOOK IS ALWAYS BEST**.

Combine the foregoing with the fact that when provoked I will say what I’m really thinking— and you get the following conversation between me, Plain Jane, and the sales associate, Kabuki Woman, at the Bobbi Brown counter in Nordstrom***.

~ • ~

Plain Jane: (approaching the make-up counter) Hi!

Kabuki Woman: (looking blankly at me) Yes.

Plain Jane: (continuing on, ignoring her disinterested tone of voice) Yes, hello. I need to get some Bobbi Brown eye shadow. Would you be able to help me please?

Kabuki Woman: (sighing at the injustice of having to wait on me) Yes.

Plain Jane: (fully aware that I am staring at this woman’s ghostly white face + overdone eye make-up, but unable to look away) Ah, yes. I need Sable & Ivory, please. I looked them up online before I came in and I think that those would be the most neutral colors for me. What do you think?

Kabuki Woman: (glaring at me with loathing while making a dismissive gesture with her hand) They’ll be fine… on YOU.

Plain Jane: (hearing my mother’s voice in my head say: “young lady, you go upstairs right now and wash that stuff off your face so that we can see how pretty you really are”) And I need a lip liner pencil. I wear Clinique Spicy Honey Almost Lipstick and I want the pencil to blend with my lips and be natural.

Kabuki Woman: (fixating on me with a fiery hot hatred, snarling her overly pigmented red lips) You’re supposed to see the lip liner when you wear it. You can look at these here. All of them are neutrals. Just pick one. They’ll all work.

Plain Jane: (getting steamed, wondering why I hadn’t gone to Sephora where the nice gay man with too much eyeliner had helped me just a week ago) Well, I think it should be a little bit better than: IT’LL WORK. Which one do I use?

Kabuki Woman: (starting to look a bit red underneath her ghostly white face) ANY… OF… THEM…

Plain Jane: (saying what I had been thinking the whole time) Look, I HATE MAKE-UP AND SHOPPING FOR IT IS WHY. I just want someone else to figure it out for me. SO WHICH ONE DO I BUY? I want to look natural.

Kabuki Woman: (shocked into actually doing something) Use this one, Bobbi Brown Brownie Pink.

Plain Jane: (making a mental note to join a convent where no one expects women to wear make-up so that I never have to suffer through this again) Thank you.

Kabuki Woman: (tottering away from me as fast as possible on her slutty high heels without so much as a thank you or a goodbye) You can pay over there.

~ THE END ~

~ • ~

*Interesting. “Would We Feel Better Without Makeup? One Woman’s Modesty Experiment”

**Adorable. “Sloth Gets Her Makeup Done Before The ‘Today’ Show (PHOTO)“

***Useful. Bobbi Brown Website

The Tale Of The Lonely Beet

January 29, 2013January 28, 2021 / Ally Bean / 22 Comments

Once upon a time the Lady of the House went to the grocery where she purchased some beets. She was going to roast them and serve them as a side dish with some ham for dinner.

:: The Lady of the House had good intentions.

However, when the Lady of the House came home from the grocery, she put the beets in a stainless steel bowl which she put in the frig. Then, she forgot about their existence.

Because the beets were well-mannered, they did not call attention to themselves in the frig. No, they just sat in the bowl and slowly allowed mold to cover them. Perhaps they were cold and considered the mold to be like a sweater. Perhaps they were content and enjoyed connecting with the mold.

:: We will never know for sure.

All we know is that the next time the Lady of the House looked at the beets she saw six moldy, dried out vegetables that were way past their prime. Upon seeing what had happened, the Lady of the House said a few words that will not be repeated on these pages.

But the Lady of the House had another idea for the beets. You see, the Lady of the House’s mother had a saying which she said to the Lady of the House when the Lady of the House was a girl.

:: And this saying was: waste not, want not.

Remembering what her mother had told her to do, the Lady of the House decided to toss the beets into the wooded ravine behind her house. The Lady of the House thought that some of the deer or raccoons that live back there might like to feast on said beets.

:: However, she was wrong about this assumption.

A few days later when the Lady of the House chanced to look outside upon her backyard realm, she noticed that all the beets were still there. And that one beet in particular, that had the misfortune of landing on top of a concrete wall instead of on the ground, was positioned in such a way as to create a perfect photo-op.

So, the Lady of the House, who also happened to be a blogger extraordinaire, grabbed her camera. Then she went outside and took one of the best artsy-farsty photos she has ever taken. Not wanting to let this photo go to waste, the Lady of the House figured she could put this photo on her blog, tell her readers how this beet came to be so alone, and call it a blog post.

:: And that is exactly what she did. The end.