Inside Out

Surface elements that reveal the core

Abide a moment, Dear Reader, while I reacquaint my fingers with the keyboard. They (my fingers) are stumbling about (the keys) like a newborn colt, a little goofy and lacking of purpose. Yes, it has been a while.

Happily, my feet remain nimble whilst all heeled up. Absence from Blogistan has not connoted absence from the life of full expression. With the cool weather well set in for the Atlanta winter, I have been on a little run, and have enjoyed a lovely embrace of the world. It still feels fresh and enlivening. And there is always an opportunity for upping one’s game.

Make Up.

I have found that one can keep brushes sharp and blush lines blurred by going to school. I realize I am going to sound like a Grandmother, but the online world is ripe with tuition. It is strange that I automatically went to YouTube to determine how to change a headlight on my CRV, but was late to the party on consulting online experts about how to make my bulbous nose recede with the aid of contouring tools.

It must also be said that ventures to Ulta, whether in drab or en Femme are typically met by great advice and a happy lack of curiosity about one’s motives. The general vibe I have found here is “sure, why wouldn’t you want to look gorgeous?”. Very fluid place.

Make up has in common with shoes the following: Price is a good indicator of quality. The difference in appearance between bargain brand and value vendor is not so distinct at the start of an evening. By the end of an evening, the little splash out on quality pays off on the feet and face. I have formed an attachment with Smashbox. Finding your make up muse is going to take kissing a few frogs. Well, get kissing. That’s what Princesses do after all.

In any event, spend per your requirements, but seek advice online and in the real world both.

More Make Up

So, I did not fully apprehend until recently that make up is a thing south of the neckline. Well, this is a revelatory finding I must tell you. Once you have followed the click-bait into the vast universe of YouTube facial contouring videos, do not be surprised to run into cleavage contouring features. I have been getting great value out of these learnings in part because this is make up I can apply with my glasses on. That is a real plus. Age has not been kind to my eyes you see.  But wow.

I have a swimmer’s body minus the lungs. Wide shoulders, small cup with a vast prairie of sternum in between the low dunes. Plungy bras don’t work so well for me, and push ups have tended to merely smush. I have dresses that I cannot bear to part with, but which simply don’t flow well around my bust. My necklaces may as well hang on scarecrows. I have always covered up by chest, and relied on full breast forms to create an external silhouette, to which I have contributed virtually nothing other than holding my shoulders back.

In short, I have no flesh. But, a few minutes online, a little make up applied with the right brushes, and a couple of strips of tape, and then optionally, a little silicon cookie tucked in, and presto, I am actually filling out my bra, with, well, me. And to use a retrograde expression, va va voom! I don’t want to be objectivized. I don’t want to be the subject of leering male gaze (or envious female gaze). But if it is to be, then it should be about more than my calves. And having, displaying actual cleavage touches me way beneath the surface.

Feeling that way

O, what a natural thing, putting it all together and going out into the world. And yet how becoming Petra remains an intoxicating, all-encompassing, fully immersive neutron-bomb of glory. Always with wide open plains of opportunity for experiment, optimization and, for fleeting moments now and then of real feeling beyond longing, a feeling of belonging and being and beauty.

I hope old friends and new who find this post feel this way.

Happy Holidays to you all.

xoxo - Petra