A Few of My Favorite Blogs

As I peruse the Blogger of Note tab on my Blogger dashboard, I continue to find some really wonderful blogs, along with many blogs that don't hold my interest and yet have hundreds of followers. There is no accounting for taste. I still find it amazing that reading blogs could teach me so much about myself and my potential interests. Because I am physically exhausted and brain dead at the moment, I don't have access to many good thoughts. However, I can manage to copy and paste, and highlight some of my favorite blogs.

http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/

http://www.labeletterouge.com/

http://scrappapermonologue.blogspot.com/

http://upanddowntown.blogspot.com/

http://norunningwithscissor.blogspot.com/

http://drunkloveheart.blogspot.com/

http://intothehermitage.blogspot.com/

This is my small way of thanking some of the people that I inspire me. Thanks for your creativity and craziness.

Bloomingdale's

Yesterday I did something that was completely out of character, self-indulgent, and anxiety producing: I went to Bloomingdale's and bought nice makeup. Of course I would not have been in Bloomingdale's had it not been for a Bloomingdale's gift card. They were having a great sale, fifty percent off many items, however when you are talking about Bloomingdale's that's not particularly helpful for many of us that don't have access to large sums of cash. I knew that I couldn't buy the boots and clothes that I wanted with the gift card, but I could buy some really nice makeup. At first I was a bit intimidated and overwhelmed, as I am not used to treating myself to nice things,  however, I started to get the hang of it at the Dior counter.

When I returned from the mall, I went straight up to my bedroom, as I was having a mini panic attack. Whenever I shop I go into a mild state of panic afterward. Actually, I have never really enjoyed shopping, although I appreciate the idea of shopping.There are just too many choices and too little money, which doesn't make for a very good time.

If you are looking for a deeper message to my shopping/makeup post, there is one, no kidding. Buying myself nice makeup at Bloomingdale's has changed me a little bit inside, not to mention outside. I always said that had I taken a road trip to California I would be a different person, because I would be a person that has taken a road trip to California, which at present I am not. If I had nice makeup, then I would be a woman that treats herself to nice makeup. So, now I am a person that has pretty colors made from nice stuff to put on her skin, which is an idea that I previously, like twenty-six hours ago, would have never entertained. Yes, I dare say that buying makeup at Bloomingdale's was a life altering experience.

Missing Funny

In elementary school and junior high school, I was considered the funny girl. I was not one of the pretty girls, but the funny one. Fortunately with time my looks began to improve, however,  my funniness went into hiding. I became increasingly serious, introspective, and brooding and carried those less than funny characteristics with me through to adulthood.

 Often times, I become preoccupied with trying not to be offensive and strive to be ever so correct and polite. The other day I began to wonder where this concern about being offensive is coming from. Then it dawned on me that a part of me really does believe that I am offensive, stemming from the fact that I have actually offended many people in my life by trying to be funny. Frequently, I would make outrageous comments just to get a reaction out of people, and many times the reaction that I got was not favorable. When my humor “worked” it was a glorious experience of being appreciated, however, when it failed it put me at odds with people and made me appear as quite an odd duck.

Through all of my years of being a polite and good girl, I managed to sequester my offensive self and the memory of her. However, the whimsical and funny girl of my youth has never gone away. Unless you live with me, or are my best friend, chances are you have never experienced the real me and you may never. The real me is not polite and correct, she only wants you to think that she is. Message to self today: being polite and appropriate all the time is exhausting, inauthentic, and headache producing.  So please try to stop doing it.

Blogger of Note

Welcome back to my regular readers and a special welcome if this is your first visit to Beauty and Imperfection. I am honored to be today's BON (Blogger of Note) for Words of Wisdom.

You are warmly invited to visit daily, offer your comments, and keep me company by becoming a follower.

Some of my favorite posts:

Filling Emptiness

Shadow of the Sister 

The Contents of My Bedside Table

My Discovery of Details

I generally don't enjoy using the internet. I know it may sound odd, but I get bored with it and never know what I should look up. However over the past few days a lovely change has occurred in my relationship with the internet. Actually, we really didn't have much of a relationship before, as I was bored and ambivalent, and it was not eager to pursue. The transformation happened this past Monday when I discovered on my Blogger dashboard a tab called Blogs of Note. I was stunned and delighted with the knowledge that my netbook loved me so much that it had hidden in its depths a tab linking me to a plethora of edgy, beautiful, creative blogs. There are blogs out there that have themes. Who knew?

I tend to be a big picture person, caring very little about the details of life. So I talk and write about the process and experience of life, but not really about the details of living life. My discovery of these "Blogs of Note" has altered my perception a bit, and taught me more about myself than any self-help book ever could. I have discovered that I enjoy blogs that deal with detail. I may be somewhat confusing with my talk of details, for I know what I am talking about although it may be completely unclear to you, or you think that you know perfectly well what I am talking about and you really don't. Here are some of the details that I have discovered that I like quite a lot:

Sketches of clothing and shoes. There are some fantastic fashion and art blogs out there. I never imagined that I could find such joy from looking at sketches of clothes, shoes, and other interesting things that a person may use to adorn themself. As a teenager and when I was in my early twenties, I enjoyed drawing; however, for some inexplicable reason I let go of that interest.The simplicity and elegance of the drawings that I found on www.upanddowntown.blogspot.com, have inspired me to buy a sketch book and pencils; yes, and use them to draw.

There are some fantastic dolls out there made of clay, porcelain and other materials that I know nothing about. I didn't find barbie dolls, but dolls with the most exquisite details from the hair to the lips. Yesterday I found a doll that was so stunning, I had never seen anything quite like her, she was truly a work of art. Great care was given to every detail, from the waves in her flowing black hair, to the cracks in her full pouty lips. I wanted to buy her and all of her beautiful silk outfits, but she was $4,000.00.


Psychoanalysis: I found a wonderful site about the experiences of a woman living in California and studying at a psychoanalytic institute.


So, at the moment the big picture doesn't interest me as much as the details of living: dolls, fashion, art, Freud, and colorful underwear (I didn't mention that one, although it had merit). I look forward to the details that my journey will lead me to next week.

What Happened to My Face?

I have never been overly concerned about my appearance and certainly not about aging. When I was in my twenties I told my self that I would always look like I was in my twenties, and I honestly believed this to be true up until a couple of years ago. I thought that if I willed it, I would look the same at seventy that I had at twenty-eight. Those were the wonderful days of living in a grand magical illusion. I'm forty one, twenty-nine years away from seventy, and I am quite aware that I don't look like a twenty-eight year old or a thirty-eight year old for the matter. It seems as though over night, my face has changed and not for the better. Unless I'm smiling I think that I look quite awful. My hands are different also. What happened to the youthful skin on my hands? No longer can I eat an entire pie over the course of a day, apparently I have to eat in moderation and exercise if I want to wear clothes with zippers.

Here is the odd thing, or really it's not so odd but rather common. I feel exactly the same inside even though I am different outside. For most of my life I have heard people talk about feeling the same as they did when they were a kid even though their bodies had grown old; now I am beginning to understand that insight. I'm not old by any means, and many people consider forty-one to be a baby still. Fortunately, a change in wisdom and insight occurs with age, but the inner feeling of youthfulness stays the same. It is mind blowing to think that should I live to eighty that I would have the same inner feeling that I have carried with me since childhood. What an experience that would be, both amazing and utterly frustrating having a body that is out of sync with your spirit.

In the beginning I looked forward to forty and to every year that would follow, because I cherished all of the wonderful lessons that I had learned and would continue learning with age. I still love the concept of aging and growing in wisdom, but I hate what it's doing to my face.

Addendum

1. Speak fluent French and Hebrew.
2. Design and create my own really beautiful clothes.