the outside lane

About Face

April 10, 2015 the outside lane

As you know, I am gearing up for the Listen To Your Mother Austin performance. We have two shows on Saturday, April 25, at 3pm and 7pm, and one of those will be video’d for distribution on the LTYM YouTube channel. If you’ve read more than three posts here, you know that I am more than superficially concerned with my appearance, so in preparing for the show, I decided I needed to brush up my contouring skills.

See, I have a very soft jawline. This means that from certain angles (like the one I’ll be filmed from for the LYTM show) my chin disappears entirely, melting into my neck, so that I look like a sock puppet with nice eyes. I could show you my passport photo as proof, but I won’t.

I know how to contour, but have had limited success in doing it on my own head. I’ve managed to add just enough shadows to make myself look like a sock puppet with nice eyes, and a brown U shape where a jawline should be. I do not want that for the LYTM show.

I booked myself into BLUSHINGTON for a Camera Ready, Lucky Stars look. My makeup artist, Desiree, listened, looked, and got to work. Normally, the first time I see a makeup artist, I walk out looking like I’ve been playing in my mother’s kit. I was really pleased at what Desiree did for me, and was very happy that she took the time to walk me through not just the How-To of applying contour, but the Why-This.

I walked into Blushington looking like this. And I took this photo (with flash) from an unflattering angle. The flash gave me a chin. Yay for chins!

I walked out looking like this. Same camera angle with flash, and I did my best to make the same facial expression. Amazing what a little paint can do for a girl!

Here’s what I liked about the look:

I had cheekbones!
I had a jaw!
My nose no longer looked like a little blob of silly putty
Eyebrows!
And the contouring took five pounds off my face

Here’s what I didn’t like:

The product really didn’t work with my skin type, which is nothing to do with the makeup artist
I felt like the look aged me 10 years
I felt like the eyeline was too thin
I like to line my lips before wearing a really bright lipstick, so I can even them out. My face isn’t symmetrical enough to carry off that much color without building out my lip first.

The big challenge was to get home and see if I could recreate the work Desiree had done. I loved her, by the way. She was very knowledgeable about product, trends, and makeup artists. She was as familiar with the looks in Kevin Aucoin’s books as I am, and that doesn’t happen every day. We spoke the same look-language, and that made me trust her more.

This is what the makeup looked like in the lighting of my bathroom.

This is the profile of the Blushington contouring.

I washed off the left side of my face, except for the eye makeup because it is so similar to what I normally do. I did take off the eye makeup that was on my lower lid. The left side of my face is the more difficult side for me to do.

I used a highlighter pencil from my last Ipsy glam bag to draw in my highlights. A funky, half Texas shape under my eye, a skinny triangle just above my jaw, and a blob shape above my eyebrow. You want to put the light color in places you'd like to stand out, and I was trying to make my super-round, biscuit face into a shapely oval. — I used a highlighter pencil from my last Ipsy glam bag to draw in my highlights. A funky, half Texas shape under my eye, a skinny triangle just above my jaw, and a blob shape above my eyebrow. You want to put the light color in places you’d like to stand out, and I was trying to make my super-round, biscuit face into a shapely oval.

Then, I used my Rockateur bronzer from Benefit to make contour. This is absolutely the wrong color for this work, but it's all I had. I'll be picking up some ELF colors soon. The contour went really close to my hairline to oval out the round, and in a Nike swoosh right on the bone of my cheekbone, and in another swooshy shape under my jawline, starting BEHIND MY EAR. That's critical. It makes the shadowing look more natural. When I blended (and you have to blend like a fiend) I blended into my ear and all the way down my neck-also critical if you want to avoid looking like your head is pasted on. — Then, I used my Rockateur bronzer from Benefit to make contour. This is absolutely the wrong color for this work, but it’s all I had. I’ll be picking up some ELF colors soon. The contour went really close to my hairline to oval out the round, and in a Nike swoosh right on the bone of my cheekbone, and in another swooshy shape under my jawline, starting BEHIND MY EAR. That’s critical. It makes the shadowing look more natural. When I blended (and you have to blend like a fiend) I blended into my ear and all the way down my neck-also critical if you want to avoid looking like your head is pasted on.

I used a tiny brush to make a line down the side of my nose, to make ti look skinnier and less like a blob. Then I blended like crazy.

So here's my face with the highlights and low lights blended, before foundation. — So here’s my face with the highlights and low lights blended, before foundation.

And here’s the profile blended before foundation. I blended out the shadows a little too well, and had to go back and add more.

I used a damp blending sponge to pat on my MAC Studio Fix foundation, then thickened up my eyeliner with a Lancome artliner, and drew my eyebrow back in with my favorite Too Faced Brownie eyeliner pencil in the color Blondie.

Profile of the look blended with foundation.

I put on my MAC blush, drew in my lipline with NYX lipliner, and put on some gloss by Moxie.

So, I feel like the thicker eyeliner opens the eye more. I drew a much higher arch onto my brow, which opens up my face more. I took the eyeliner away from the lower lid, which keeps the cheekbone open, too.

And lest we forget the magic of cosmetics, this is what it looks like with nothing on at all.

That’s that.

I do recommend BLUSHINGTON if you ever need your face done up for a special event. Everyone I saw walking out looked beautiful and fresh. There were ladies much older than I being done up for a day of lunching and shopping, and girls who were getting done up for the prom. I overheard one lady in the lobby saying that people thought she was crazy for driving to Dallas to get her face done, but when she showed them photos of a wedding she’d been in, made up by Blushington artists, they all understood. Neither hips, nor photos lie.

Inside Lane

Were You Born? Then This Book is for You.

April 7, 2015April 6, 2015 the outside lane

A year ago, Robyn and I set out to start our own publishing house because we love to read, we love writers, and we wanted to be able to bring new voices to a wider audience. The very first project we started work on was our essay collection, Mommie Diarist.

Today, Mommie Diarist arrives.

I am prouder than I thought possible, and I love that I get to share it with you. I hope you’ll grab a copy for yourself because this book is truly for anyone who was ever born.

Inside Lane

Talking to My Boy About Girls: Movies

April 6, 2015 the outside lane

Thor: What if I wanted to change my name so that it was really Thor, and not just my nickname?

Me: Sure, kid. You just have to wait until you are 18.

Thor: Okay! Can everyone change their name?

Me: Yes, you just have to pay for it.

Thor: Oh.

Me: Do you think it would be cool if everyone changed names every few years?

Thor: Yes! Oh…no. No. Because we might all end up with the same name, or something. Like, all the girls would end up named Elsa.

Me: And all the boys would be named IronMan?

Thor: I’d be called Thor.

Me: Of course.

Thor: But, yeah, all the girls would be Elsa. *sighs* Why do all the girls love that stupid movie? I mean ALL the girls love that movie.

Me: I thought it was a nice movie. It’s a nice change for girls to see a movie like that.

Thor: Why?

Me: Well, most movies are about boys getting to do something awesome, with girls just standing there looking pretty, or about boys rescuing girls, or about girls who try to do things, but need boys to help them. Frozen is about two girls who get to use their brains and their brawn to help each other. There are some cool guys in it, but for girls, it’s nice to be able to identify with girls who are actively doing things, and being the heroes.

Thor: Oh…

Me: Imagine if every movie you saw was about a girl rescuing a boy.

Thor: *nose wrinkle*

Me: Exactly. Do you think I could rescue Daddy as much as he could rescue me?

Thor: Of course!

Me: Movies don’t. Most movies aimed at girls are about princesses who need rescuing, where the girls can’t figure out the solutions to their own problems. It’s nice to watch a movie where the girls can help themselves. That’s got a lot of appeal.

Thor: That makes total sense. But the song is still terrible.

Me: Let it go.

Thor: *eye roll*

Inside Lane

Let Them Eat Cake

April 5, 2015 the outside lane

Back when I was working at That Ministry, it was widely acknowledged that no one was allowed to speak to the Big Guy because he was very important to God, and if we interrupted his day, we might be disrupting whatever was going on between him and God at that moment. We called it, “Breaking his anointing.” You didn’t want to break his anointing because then he might not be able to perform whatever miracle God had called him to do that day.

I can’t tell you why I fell for that, but I did. Then, one day I woke up and thought, “Is God that weak?” I mean, here I was trusting that this Being had created heaven and earth, had managed thousands of years of miracles to bring Jesus into the world, then thirty-three years of perfection in human form, culminating with a resurrection from the dead after a three-day junket to hell, but me saying hello to some gel-slicked yokel in a three-thousand dollar suit was going to keep Him from being able to move on someone’s heart?

That’s embarrassing, y’all. Ten years of my life are embarrassing. I tell you about it because for every one of me waking up and asking that question, there were five more at the ministry telling me that was the enemy coming to confuse my mind, and disrupt my purpose. I tend to think it’s the other way around, though.

Jesus was all about suffering people to come to him. Sick, small, dirty, unwanted–that was his jam. The more insignificant the better because they needed him. The ones who just wanted to say hello, or touch his robe because they believed in his ability to make their lives more livable were welcome. Find me a time when Jesus told someone to go away because they were interrupting his ability to do his Father’s work. Find me a time when Jesus had his disciples go out and make sure the gathering crowds knew not to look him in the eye. Find me a time when Jesus demanded a stylist and his own fully stocked refrigerator to travel with him.

Jesus wasn’t weak. You couldn’t break his connection to God because it wasn’t weak. Your humanity didn’t diminish his godliness because it was not weak.

Your sin did not diminish his holiness.

I’m going to preface the rest of this by saying I don’t believe in sex-out-of-wedlock as a sin. I’m also going to preface this by saying I don’t think gay sex is a sin. Whatever consenting adults want to do with their bits is fine by me, as long as the other party is also consenting and adult. Jesus said there were two laws to follow, and neither of those laws said anything about how you like your toast buttered.

However, some people honestly do believe if you are a sexually active gay person, you are in great sin and great moral peril. They feel like they have to tell you that they love you, but they hate your sin. Your sin being that you are acting on your gayness. (If you are gay and celibate, they don’t have to hate your sin, they just have to worry that one day you might snap.)

There are some people who feel like gay marriage diminishes straight marriage, kind of like how me saying hello to the Big Guy might diminish his connection to God. Those people won’t even bake you a cake because that cake might cast a pall on their spirituality.

Those people are wrong. Those people are misguided. Those people are ignorant.

Sin does not diminish the presence of Christ. The presence of Christ diminishes the presence of sin.

Jesus told us to treat our neighbors as we wanted to be treated.

Jesus told us to go the extra mile for strangers.

Jesus told us to go out into the world and be lights in darkness, not to sit in our fruity little churches and congratulate ourselves on how pristine and white we are.

If homosexuality were a sin (and again, I don’t believe it is), that still wouldn’t have kept Jesus away from your wedding. That man liked a party. Sin didn’t keep Jesus away from whores and thieves. Sin didn’t keep Jesus from knowingly adding Judas to his core group of disciples. Sin didn’t keep Jesus away from crowds full of people, which probably included some gays. Sin didn’t even keep Jesus out of the Temple–but he did whip and curse the sin right out of there.

Jesus is not so weak that you showing love to someone you think is deplorable will break your connection to him. On the contrary, that’s the way he likes to work.

If you are afraid that showing love to another human being somehow weakens your Christianity, then I pity you the little god you serve. If your god is that small, that weak, and that petty, you need all the sympathy I have in my reserves.

Inside Lane

This is How a Road Gets Made

April 3, 2015 the outside lane

I swim in a pretty small social pond. It is mainly comprised of middle class, moderate-to-well educated, straight, white people. Most of us are fiscally conservative, and are socially moderate-to-liberal. Of my core group of friends, over half would self-identify as some strain of Protestant Christian. We are all gainfully employed, all with children, mortgages, and car payments, and most of us are able to take pretty decent vacations. We are rather homogeneous.

You know what you get when your gene pool is too small? You get birth defects. You get diseases like hemophilia. You get the Habsburg Jaw.

You know what you get when your social gene pool is too small? You get malformed ideas of society. You become blind to the world at large. You can turn ugly.

Diversity is important. It is important genetically, and it is important socially. It is vital.

I have been incredibly fortunate to live in major metropolitan areas, where diversity is not hard to come by. I have worked in wonderfully diverse places, and at each one I have come up against my own privilege and prejudices that I would otherwise never have know were crowding my mind. And, every single time I’ve had to stretch my mentality to accommodate a new truth based on that diversity, it has been ugly.

Why can’t I comment on the texture of your hair? Why should I have to curtail my sense of humor for you? Why do I have to learn a new pronoun?

Bottom line every time is that I can’t, shouldn’t, or must because it is a human being staring down the barrel of my verb, and my job is to do unto others as is my own entitled expectation of service.

Because I don’t want you asking about my body. Because I don’t think your rape jokes are funny. Because I want you to respect my femininity.

Because it doesn’t cost me anything to treat you well and respect your wishes.

My internet social group is much more diverse than my IRL crew. I am daily and eternally grateful to these people who challenge my blue-eyed view of the world.

If my worldview is a jungle, my friends are explorers, researchers, doctors, architects, engineers, and adventurers whacking through old growth and underbrush, smoothing out paths, clearing out space for new ideas until I suddenly find myself halfway down a super-highway of new philosophies, new empathies, and new love and respect for the diversity around me.

Like I said, it is always painful. Growth is painful. If, when you are working out, pain is weakness leaving your body, then when you are opening yourself to learn about new people outside your comfort zone, pain is small-mindedness leaving your heart. If it’s hurting, it’s working. You are being separated from ideologies that are so ingrained, it is like taking off a layer of skin. That’s a good thing.

We’re all just people. We’re all just trying to get by. Imagine how much easier that would be if each of us was intent on making the road just a little smoother for the guy to the right. Because, to the guy on the left, you’re the guy on the right.

While you are Passing Over, He is Risen-ing, Ridvaning, or just Spring-ing, take a look at the guy to your right. Make his road a little easier to walk.