Women's apparel 101

Major win today.

As I was frantically pulling things out of my closet looking for a suitable outfit for work this morning, I came across a pair of leggings I forgot I even had! 

(A quick warning to all guys, we girls may own upwards of 10 pairs of leggings of all sorts at any given time. Excessive? Yes. Absolutely essential? Yes. Room for argument or compromise? Absolutely no.)

So I found another pair of black leggings. Big whoop.  F a l s e.  What sets these ones apart from the rest is the breadth of elasticity in the waistline.  One huge caveat to wearing leggings is the tightness around the top.  Such tightness allows the apparel to stay up - not letting the material sag and bunch around the knees and ankles. However, the tight squeeze offers little room for your digestive organs to operate smoothly throughout the day. You will find, without fail, that by the end of the day you're suffering from mysterious stomach cramps that don't seem to be linked to food poisoning or dysentery. Culprit: tight leggings that pool all your stomach gases below the waistline.  Bleahhh discomfort.

(Again guys, do not let anyone fool you into thinking girls don't fart. That's very much a lie. The honest truth is we fart - but like unicorns, it's highly magical and if lucky, there may be sprinkles and glitter dust)

Back to today's find.. no gaseous pooling and all day comfort!  I'm so happy.  Unfortunately for you though, there will be no magical sparkles show ;)  at least there's fireworks tonight!

Happy fourth of July!

cat cat meow.

weekends at work are pretty slow so i pulled up our new menu that i'm working to make some changes.  i clicked open the clip art tab to insert some generic jpgs of food but instead found dreamy looking kitties suspended in psychedelic realms of soft gradient colors.  my favorite is kittens with stars and bubbles background.  i dunno.. i'm feeling divinely inspired.. we're all about patient satisfaction here and i think i've just come across the solution to all our grumpy patients.  we'll see what my boss thinks.  i really hope she's on board with this revolutionary, cutting-edge idea.

name change

there was a time in my life when i desperately wished i could change my middle name to marie.  growing up in a very white, catholic town in new york, i was super envious of my lady friends who carried the virgin's namesake among their trio of proper nouns.  wanting to change my name was motivated purely by my desire for social acceptance and not having to melt/die in my seat as teachers read off my name during roll call.  deborah waaaaaang lee??  -__-  ugh sigh.  teachers did very little to encourage my self-esteem.  thankfully, i've made great strides in overcoming the embarrassment of sharing my mom's maiden name and the need to change it.

now that i'm in the early (or is it late?  meh =/) stages of adulthood, there's a renewed reason to toy with the idea of changing my name.  among my friends and coworkers, there's a whole lot of hoopla over taking on the guy's last name after they solidify their nuptials.  whether it's for convenience, a sign of independence, professional or publication reasons, ethnic pride, auditory aesthetics, or having to come up with a new signature, some would rather opt out of the name change.  plus, there's the idea that the practice is archaic in a society where patrilineal rule is often irrelevant (ie. feminism, single parenting, etc).

for me, the idea of changing last names comes very naturally.  that's just how it is.  my parents did it, my sister did it, seems like a good idea so i might as well do it too.  there's something exciting about being adopted into a new name, signifying the start of a new family.  but beyond that, i might be at risk for following tradition just for the sake of social norm.

last weekend during youth group, billy gave a talk on god's covenant with abraham.

abram fell facedown, and god said to him, "as for me, this is my covenant with you: you will be the father of many nations.  no longer will you be called abram; your name will be abraham, for i have made you a father of many nations.  i will make you very fruitful; i will make nations of you, and kings will come from you.  i will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant between me and you and your descendants after you for the generations to come, to be your god and the god of your descendants after you.  genesis 17

billy described the significance of the name change as a reflection of abraham's character and his destiny, as revealed by god.  but why couldn't god just say "hey abram!  imma bless you and make you a nation.  done." and leave it at that without the whole name change process?  granted there was no social security and driver's license ordeal to muddle through; but on the face of the situation, it seemed quite unnecessary.  here's a man who's a hundred years old.. though the bible doesn't reveal any signs of dementia, senility, symptoms of old age, seems a little late in the game to be changing up someone's name.

i think that's just it though.  if i suddenly change my name right now to pink unicorn ride, there's bound to be a stunner effect, a far cry from what i've (and everyone else has) always known - and with that, a tangible reminder of my decision to make that change.  perhaps in my mind i will think, yes, that's me! because pink unicorns are so fluffeh i wanna diez cuz i lub dem so much!!  obviously that's a highly extrapolated analogy.. ;)

as billy shared, god changed abraham's name to reflect his promise - that it always be a reminder to him of the covenant that was made.  in the same way, changing your last name when you get married is a reflection of the covenant that was made at the altar.  and from thereon, whenever you write, speak or hear your new name, it serves as a reminder of the commitment you made to god and to each other to remain in that promise.  this, to me, is sound reason enough to change my name instead of blindly following tradition.  it'd also give me a reason to swap out my current middle name =]

conversely, i wonder if guys have a strong preference for their spouse to change their name?

side note..  if you think about it, generally the ring is supposed to denote these same concepts - but the difference in cost between a ring and legal name change is hundreds maybe thousands.   like a metaphorical ring without the giant pricetag.   so from a financial point of view, it'd be more cost effective to change your name rather than getting a ring - which includes all the fuss of choosing one :D  hahaa

strong words

You know, I'm aware of the fact that it's not fashionable to center one's life around faith. But if ridicule and contempt come my way for believing in moral absolutes that set the standards by which we are to live, rather than moving the goal posts constantly so I can claim to be winning at life when I'm just lowering the standards to make it appear that way, then I'll joyfully take the ridicule. I'm gonna have all eternity to get over that ridicule.

-mike huckabee

male make up artists are just as dangerous

i don't usually wear pancake batter on my face. but i had a wedding to be in so i thought i'd invest in some and look nice for pictures. originally i went to the local drugstore looking for makeup but felt convicted to stop breaking open seals and testing out foundations in the mirrors of the sunglasses rack.

off to ulta i go! when it comes to makeup, all i know is the limited experience i have doing my own face, my own way. so i assumed i could entrust my skin to this place where magical on-site make up elves reside and lead me to the perfect choice of pancake batter.

i walk in and am instantly approached by a dude. neatly waxed eyebrows, distinct cheeckbones, slight curl of eyelashes and tight black pants. am i skeptical? shore. but what do i know about the world of fashion and beauty? i kindly tell him my dilemma of not wanting anything thick that would melt off my face as i stand erect in the sun while my friends exchange vows - but wanting to give my face that ethereal, soft glow that's so sought after in wedding pictures. when it comes to knowledge of different products, he seemed to be able to sound convincing enough for a critic like me. apparently you can't just buy pancake batter. there's moisturizer, primer, the batter itself, powder, and finally a finishing spray. seriously?! lemme just wear a kabuki mask.

so we decide on a bb cream with spf. despite the horrid smell of spf, i conclude that the aboriginal mountain people blood in me is gonna want it when the sun starts turning onto me at 4pm. my private make up consultant sits me down on one of their highball chairs and proceeds to paint my face with some sketchy looking brushes he keeps in his fanny pack.

he starts out with the lightest color on hand. in my head i'm thinking, really?! mind you, i'm not one of those pale, i'm-afraid-of-the-sun asian kinda people who wear face shields while they're driving (some people will know what i'm talking about =/ ). i have mountain people blood in me so generally i look closer to ethiopian during the summer months. going with a light cream on me means you must have some issues with the rods in your eyeballs. so i ask him to try a few darker shades just to make sure i get the correct shade of expensive goop.

here's my own personal mistake that i'll 'fess up to. ulta has the worst form of fluorescent lights in the store. everyone knows these long white rods of light turn even the most attractive skin into a pale, grayish blue green tinge look. the putrid look of your skin under such conditions makes it nearly impossible to distinguish subtle changes in shade as you're testing out different batters. i should have known this and not let the tattooed artist decide the fate of my skin.

so now that he'd painted my face into a mosaic of nude colors, i had the great joy of distinguishing which color was best for my skin. as i said earlier, i'd originally walked into the store with the hopeful anticipation of placing my face in the hands of an expert. as he tried to convince me that i needed the light color, my inner 1/16 aboriginal taiwanese conscious was chanting "serious?!?? clearly i am not light". but the naive trust that i'd innocently given over to the experts was pulling me to concede with the guy who shaped his eyebrows every morning. and so i found myself at the registers with my smashbox bb cream in light.

fast forward a few hours later. i'm standing in front of my sink under the gangsta light of my 1940s bathroom sink, smearing glop all over my face. what the heckama?! i look like a freaking vampire.

ughh.

so the story comes to a close. i only hope to impart to you the wisdom i've gained from this experience: when a dude tries to tell you he knows how to paint your face, be skeptical.

one of these things is not like the others =]