As you know, Women Are Fascinating. We have the potential to do and be Everything. With this comes the good and the bad.
This is also the same passage as "OMG, I talked to Zoetica today and she actually talked back". I don’t know where I found Z, but it was probably some day years ago when Warren Ellis was drooling over one of her photos online. After following the appropriate links I was immediately hooked on her with a strong girl crush – she had amazing art, she established her own empire online using her entire self and she ran it very successfully. Lavish makeup. Style. Cybette Icon.
I spent countless hours developing this blog, recording every dream, memory and after thought. I used pieces of myself to build Great Dame. There have been times when this has brought me joy, and times when this has brought me down. I quickly added Zoetica (and nothing else associated with her) to my feed reader for all the ways that I related to her and all the ways in which I didn’t…
…but wished that I could.
Being a social science geek, a picture will fascinate me. I want to know how much went into making it and how accurate it reflects something in existence. As Z’s words, products and images began accumulating in her own storage space within my brain, I began noticing peculiar things. Everything would look so beautiful and there was so much excitement captured, but –
"Look at that", I’d think. " "In this reception collage she’s making the exact same face in most of the shots. Exact same pose, chin tilt, lip purse, why the heck is that? Is she aware of that? What’s the psychology, there?" That brings into question, how much self-consciousness goes into such an evening out and how much fun are you having when you look the same in so many different ways?
A lot of what I get out of her blog, I look to myself for answers. The questions I’m asking her, I’m really asking myself. Girls, haven’t we all found our best angle?
But this morning was different. This morning was bad. I knew she had been mentioning the arrival of No Makeup Week but I was still unprepared. As I choked down a Lean Pocket, pushing through a tough day, Zoetica’s No Makeup Week Photo loaded into my browser:
(What, you want to see it? Go look at it.)
And I nearly choked on my rubbery concoction of low fat cheese and pepperoni. WHAT?!
All I saw was makeup. Styling. Flattery. Contour, shadow – the product. I was really upset. While she only wanted to exhibit pride in what was missing, it was what was showing under the title "No Makeup Week" that lead to this comment:
One of very few who said something…