Yes, and ....

Really, improv is fun -- if scary -- to do.

Wrote about my experiences with it and Houston's improv scene recently for The Buzz Magazines.

Mirror, Mirror, On The Wall

You Don’t Have to Show It All

Staying at hotels is fun, except for the mirrors in the bathrooms.

They all seem to have magnifying mirrors and lighting suitable for an operating room.

Gah.

Why would you do that to yourself?

Is there a conspiracy between the hotels and beauty companies? Do the hotels get a kickback when people run out and buy electrolysis and/or concealer?

Calling them vanity mirrors seems like a misnomer; insecurity mirrors would be more like it.

Seeing everything in detail on anything is not always the best option. For example, as a near-sighted person, I have discovered that Christmas trees and Christmas lights are best looked at without glasses or contacts. You don’t see the wires and the hooks and the bulbs and the extension cords. You just see what you are supposed to see: lights and colors and shine.

I would argue that the same holds for faces, your own and other people’s. We don’t have to see every pore and eyebrow hair, people.

The New York Times Magazine tends to employ a photography style on their cover subjects that zooms in on the pores on the person’s nose, which is just mean.

I think/hope that what I see in my own bathroom mirror (a regular one, lit by regular light bulbs) is what other people see when they look at me.

Another reason I think people aren’t seeing me in high-def: They are probably worrying more about their own faces than scrutinizing mine.

I’m all for not worrying about this. How about you?

It’s All Made Up

Don’t hate me, but a week or two ago, I was doing some early Christmas shopping.

I went into Sephora, the cosmetics store, to see if I could find a “stocking stuffer” or two for my daughter, age 22.

She doesn’t usually wear make-up but she likes perfumes. (An industrial-design major, she collects perfume bottles.) And she’s not adverse to fun things and silly things, sparkly things and colorful things. Make-up’s fun, I said to myself, though I wear little to none myself.

But it’s not, really.

Yes, it’s exotic and colorful and super-duper expensive. A small pressed disc of colored powder $40, make-up brush extra. What a racket.

But I couldn’t find the fun.

It was all about how you aren’t good enough the way you are. You need to hide all your shameful “flaws.” The make-up I perused was supposed to make your skin look clearer or your eyes look bigger. Those false eyelashes, which you glue to your eyelids, are supposed to replace your own sparse and unsatisfactory ones. You’re supposed to use blush, contour AND highlighter powders to create the illusion you have high cheekbones, the lipstick and other lip “products” to make your lips somehow “better.” A salesperson told me that $30 brush was to use with your foundation. Otherwise, people might see fingerprints on your face. Maybe on her face, on which she had applied about a quarter of an inch of “foundation.”

The sales pitch was: Your face isn’t fit to be seen as it really is.

And that’s sad.