Vanitas Vanitatum...

When I was in high school we sang a song in choir called Vanitas Vanitatum... The whole song is comprised of one phrase that is repeated over and over, "Vanitas vanitatum, et omnia vanitas." It means, "Vanity, vanity, all around is vanity."

Today I paid the high price of vanity in the form of utter frustration and insecurity. Today was my friends' Luke and Kristin's wedding. I decided that in honor of their special day I would put a little extra effort into getting ready.

So, to that end I hauled out the trusty old hot rollers and while they were setting I decided to give this whole makeup thing a try again. When my friend Heidi's wedding was approaching I got tips on makeup from Megan at work. So, bearing in mind everything she taught me, I started working on this fiasco that I call Me applying makeup.

I've gotten somewhat better at it since last summer's Short Bus to Makeup School post, but still I'm nowhere near proficient. I'm barely passable.

I muddled my way through powder and foundation, and eyeliner and eyeshadow and ended with mascara. I thought that I had done an ok job. I took the hot rollers out and tried to tame my hair, but it wasn't having any of that. I decided to go on the offensive and pin my hair up. I decided that it was as good as it was going to get, and out the door I went.

As I came to my first stop sign, my face started to feel a little warm because I was a little stressed about leaving later than I'd planned. So I decided to check my reflection in the mirror and to my absolute horror I saw that my makeup, which had been so perfectly matched to my skin up until this point was suddenly a completely different color than the rest of me. My neck looked shockingly white against my face. I was flabbergasted. I did the only possible thing I could do while in transit... I took my hair down trying to soften the contrast, but my hair had other ideas. Instead of just behaving like my normal and usually well manner hair, it went absolutely wild. At the next stop light I tried desperately to tame it.

At this point I was torn between panic and rage. The more I worried about it, the warmer my face got, increasing the contrast between face and throat. And to make it all worse, there was this stupid Taurus wagon in front of me that insisted on going way under the speed limit. Suddenly I couldn't decide which I wanted more, a magic wand to fix the mess that was my hair and makeup, or a rocket launcher to clear my path.

Thankfully upon arrival, I discovered that the lighting inside was somewhat dimmed. I was less worried about people noticing my resemblance to a rodeo clown.

I got back home and had only a few minutes before we had to leave for a birthday party. I didn't even have time to kick off my heels and let my feet have a break. We went to the party, and I ended up spending a fair bit of time on my feet, and then later when discussing lawn mowers and vacuums, the point was made that vacuuming would be more fun in a tiara. I said that vacuuming would be more fun if we had a riding vacuum. I again thought how if women ruled the world, there would be riding vacuums and we wouldn't have to go through all these vanity rituals before going to an event.

We got home and I gleefully changed into sweats and fuzzy socks, and contemplated the best method of removing the metric ton of makeup from my face. I narrowed it down to the 3 best methods. 1. Go down to the carwash and use their high pressure hoses. 2. Use the fresh sheet of 220 grit sandpaper that I had just put on the palm sander. 3. Hope and pray that the pre-moistened makeup removing towelettes were up for the task.

I ruled out sanding because we just got the all the sawdust out of the garage earlier today, and I didn't want to clog up the air with more dust. I ruled out carwash because I didn't have that many quarters on hand. So I pulled my hair back and tackled the makeup with the towelettes. It took a couple, but I finally prevailed. I brushed my hair out and was vastly relieved to see that had finally settled down. It's quite distressing to know that you're the model for the new Hooker Hair Barbie that's due to hit the stores this Christmas season... (5" heels and oversized purse sold separately.)