This weekend Courtney and I did a little shoppin'...and wound up falling victim to an organized crime gang.

We had just wandered into the cosmetic department at Marshall Field's so Court could pick up a Lancome eyeliner pencil.  Just a quick drive-by.  Or so we thought... <insert eerie music here>. While Courtney was negotiating with the Lancome rep over the possibility of an unecessary, 'complimentary' gift pack, I picked my way through the mine-field of perfume testers, blithely unaware of my fate.  And that's when it happened.

"Brows!!  Your brows!!  Perfect for shaping!  I'll shape them!  You'll look like that Charlie's Angels girl!  The one who looks like Lisa Ling!  Lisa Ling!!"  Just like that, I was set upon by a woman with a sort of weird petite-Asian-Cher thing going.

"Um, Lucy Liu?"  I suppose I was too stunned to do anything but sort of answer the question she wasn't really asking.

"Lucy Liu!!"

"Lucy Liu?"

"Your brows!  You sit here, I'll shape them - we have this wonderful brow kit...your brows so easy...it will look great!"  And then, before I really knew what was happening, I was sitting in the chair and she was plastering a brow stencil to my head and brushing in a complicated mix of powders...all the while keeping up a wildly random patter.  I didn't have the heart (or the room in the conversation) to tell her that I'm not really a Lucy Liu fan and haven't watched Ally McBeal in years.

"You Chinese or Korean?  Korean?  There are lots of Koreans in LA!"

"Um, ok." 

"See!  See!!  Now look at your brow!!"  She held the mirror up and I looked.  It actually looked pretty good.  Although it's not like it mattered, since I couldn't very well walk away with just one brow done over.  Trapped.  I was trapped by the Brow Nazi.

"It looks nice."

"I'll do the other one!  What do you do?  What's your job?  You're a student?"

"Um, no, a lawyer."

"A lawyer!!  You're too young to be a lawyer!  Too young!  Lucy Liu!!"  (ok, she didn't really say the last Lucy Liu - but I know she was thinking it)

After a scary amount of plucking and brushing and trimming later (all of which served to make me feel like I had this enormous unibrow that was being beaten back so that I could be at least presentable in the civilized world), she finally pronounced me done.

"But you should really stay and let her (gesturing at another make-up person) do your make-up!  You should!!  She's usually in LA - you know, doing the stars' make-up - but today she's here!  You should!"  At this point I knew I was already on the hook for whatever obscene amount of $$ she was going to charge me for the Miracle (Lucy Liu!) Brow Kit, but I was still going to stand firm.

"No, thanks, really, I just don't have time for any more today...just the brows, really."

Then Courtney walks up.  The Brow Nazi catches a glimpse of her and whirls around in a burst of energy.

"Brows!!  You'll let me do your brows!!  Oh!  Brows!"  Courtney looks stunned.  But bows before the attack, suddenly painfully aware of her here-to-fore unmentionable Brow Problem.  Of course, now I have Time.  I am vulnerable to the Make-Up Person.

"Now you have time!"

"Um, yeah.  Ok."

"Hi!  This will be great - we can do a lot!"  The make-up woman (specialist? artist? technician? felon?) assesses my face.

"Ask her what she does!  Tell her what you do!!"  The Brow Nazi, apparently still in shock that someone of my extreme youth could be a practicing attorney, is forcing me to reveal this fact to the make-up woman.

"I'm a lawyer."  I usually don't like telling people this.

The make-up woman is startled.  She looks at me like I'm a freak.  (see - it never pays to tell anyone that you're a lawyer)

"I'm sorry - did you just say that you're a whore?"

And this is where the big neon sign saying "Run!" should have finally appeared.  As Courtney pointed out later, if I really was a whore, why would I say that?  Why wouldn't I say I was a personal services specialist, or a nighttime physical therapist, or even a mistress of the evening?  Would I really just say "I'm a whore" ?

But I make light of the mistake.  Sure, yeah, whore - lawyer - not a big difference to a lot of people, hah hah blah blah blah.  Just getting my fall colors done so I can drum up more business this season...

Anyway, the make-up woman sets to work on me.  All the while chatting about what they do for models and actresses in LA. 

"We use this highlighting creme on Michelle Pfeiffer!" (and I ask you, where is her career now?)

What seems like hours (and several inches of make-up) later, she is done.  I look in the mirror and nod in approval.  Actually, it doesn't look half bad, but it doesn't look like me.  It's like some kind of Margaret Cho/Lucy Liu/Lisa Ling hybrid creature...

Of course, I bought product.  Lots of product.  Not, mind you, the 4 kinds of eyeshadow or the 3 kinds of lipstick or the concealer or the Michelle Pfeiffer! highlighting creme or the 2 kinds of blusher or the lip liner or the mascara or the lip lacquer...but I did pick up some foundation and powder and eye-liner.

Courtney (after having her own make-up session) also bought lots of product.  We agreed later that it was like a Stockholm Syndrome experience: First they kidnap you and then they insult you and hold you captive until you grow to love them and give them all your money. 

'Course, I love them now.  Wouldn't use any other brand.  And no, that's not because I spent my make-up budget for the next 10 years on them...it's because I love them...really.  Lucy Liu!

p.s.  will post a pic of the post-make-over later...

10:12:31 AM    

So, I'm reading Sarah Vowell's Take the Cannoli.  It's really good.  She's a talent, that Sarah Vowell.  Here she is on what it's like to have left behind a life steeped in Old Time Religion:

I miss the harmony.  Some Sunday mornings, in the middle of secular superstitious rituals like reading The New York Times Magazine or watching that berserk Sam Donaldson on TV, I'll hum "I'll fly away" as I make coffee, remembering what it was like to have a Sunday morning purpose, remembering what it was like to have someplace to go, even if it was just hell.

Definitely a talent, that Sarah Vowell.

10:29:27 PM    

Yay!  Buffy is back, baby.  All brand-spankin' new season of BTVS served up in the most piping of hotness.  I know, people may smirk and mock, but only because they haven't given it a chance.  Or maybe because their senses of of joy and wonder and pleasant perversity have gone all dormant.  Anyway, my Tuesday night, hell, my whole damn week, has suddenly picked most excellently up.

Rawk on, Sunnydale!

* although I'm worried about Spike now.  He doesn't look so good...

8:10:18 PM    

So, I promised someone that I wouldn't post this.

9:23:20 PM    

A mini-tour of what I see after I get off my bus in the morning on the way to work:

1.  I normally get off the bus at the Wrigley Building.  Doesn't it look fine this morning.

2.  Then I walk across the bridge on Michigan Avenue.  Look at all the people...

3.  The bridge crosses the Chicago River.

4.  Lots of construction on Lower Wacker Drive...

5.  Looking south on Michigan.

6.  Ok.  Glance behind you and there's the Tribune Building.

7.  Hang a louie and then head up the stairs.  One stepat a time, please.

8.  Rah!  We're at the office.  It's comfy, isn't it?  Check out my view.

And thus concludes today's tour.  Maybe tomorrow we'll go looking for Trixies...

10:19:38 PM    

Ok.  Today's Cracker Jack prize is a selection of groovy photos I took in Europe this Spring.  I know what today is, by the way, but there will be memorials enough for those other too-well-known images.  I choose to celebrate different pictures.  It's not only about what we lost, you know, it's also about what we still have.

One Two Three

7:34:38 AM