this side? or this side?
Me: "I think I like this one better. The other one has too much blue in it, don't you think?"
Bleu: "Uh. No. What?"
Me: *facepalm* "Gah. Art school, sorry. It's more purple, and purple is made out of blue."
Bleu: "Yeah, go with that one."
Bleu says that This Sort Of Thing really Only Happens To Me. She says it in a way that invites capitalized letters, because -- well, y'all read me, you know my crazy life.
All I wanted was red nail polish for my toes. But being me, I had to look at all seventy different kinds of red, and have internal debates about whether there was too much blue or yellow in them, etc etc, and somehow in the process I got... stolen. For help. By a lady who seemed ever so slightly off. She was walking around holding two giant bottles of foundation, and sort of shaking her head in annoyance, and she had opened up the foundation bottles and had blobs of it on her hands.
I don't know how it started exactly, I just know that I wound up standing there in complete bafflement watching this woman rub quarter-sized blots of foundation onto different sides of her face, and then telling her which one I liked better. There were several problems with this. I shall explain.
1. The last time I regularly wore makeup was in high school. I gave up on that nonsense once I graduated and got a car, which meant I had to be coherent enough in the morning to not kill myself in said car. Makeup time quickly turned into COFFEE COFFEE COFFEE time.
2. Even when I wore makeup, I never did foundation because the palest shades they had were still too dark for my fishbelly-white self, so:
3. Figuring out what foundation works best for a black woman is really out of my area of expertise. Especially when I'm supposed to pick something from a rack.
She kept grabbing bottles and trying stuff on, and after a while (ladies, you know what I mean when I say a quarter-sized glob is a lot of that shit) it all sort of ran together and I couldn't see the difference anymore. To further complicate things, she'd open the bottle, swab some out, close the bottle, and put it back so after I said I preferred A over B, or C over D, or.. I think it went to M over N or something... I was then asked, do you remember which one it was?
Bleu, meanwhile, was hiding at the other end of the aisle all LA LA LA I DON'T KNOW ANY OF THE PEOPLE IN THE STORE. I decided I would Not Be Having with this lack of backup, and went and got her. "You wear foundation," I started, to Bleu.
Foundation Lady says: "You don't?"
Indi: "No. I, um--" [realizing that "because it doesn't come in Mime, and anyway the dog thinks it tastes like candy" is not going to work here] "-- uh, my skin doesn't like it. Breaks out something awful."
Foundation Lady: "But your skin looks so good! You're not wearing anything?"
Indi: "Nah. I break out, it's awful, I go red. I look like a lobster then."
Foundation Lady, smearing another wad of foundation on: "What about this one?"
Indi: "I'unno. Blend it more."
[She does.]
Bleu: "THAT ONE. GO WITH THAT ONE."
Indi: "It's, um." [off Bleu's glare] "Yeah! I like that. It works better than the others."
Foundation Lady: "But I was thinking of this one, on this side - which side, d'you think?"
Bleu, ready to run: "THAT SIDE."
Indi: "Yeah, that one."
Foundation Lady: "Hmm, yeah, it does cover better. Cos my skin does this thing, you see it?"
Indi: [off another glare from Bleu] "Not under the makeup I don't!"
Foundation Lady: [happily] "Look, it's two for ten bucks! You girls are so nice, thank you!"
Ten minutes later...
Bleu: "How come stuff like that always happens to you?"
Indi: "How come stuff like that never happens to you?!"
Bleu: "I don't look at people."
Indi: "That helps?"
Bleu: [Indi, you are an idiot] "Uh, yeah. Hey, look - chocolate."
So then we got chocolate, because it only doesn't have fat in it when I buy it for other people.
Bleu: "Uh. No. What?"
Me: *facepalm* "Gah. Art school, sorry. It's more purple, and purple is made out of blue."
Bleu: "Yeah, go with that one."
Bleu says that This Sort Of Thing really Only Happens To Me. She says it in a way that invites capitalized letters, because -- well, y'all read me, you know my crazy life.
All I wanted was red nail polish for my toes. But being me, I had to look at all seventy different kinds of red, and have internal debates about whether there was too much blue or yellow in them, etc etc, and somehow in the process I got... stolen. For help. By a lady who seemed ever so slightly off. She was walking around holding two giant bottles of foundation, and sort of shaking her head in annoyance, and she had opened up the foundation bottles and had blobs of it on her hands.
I don't know how it started exactly, I just know that I wound up standing there in complete bafflement watching this woman rub quarter-sized blots of foundation onto different sides of her face, and then telling her which one I liked better. There were several problems with this. I shall explain.
1. The last time I regularly wore makeup was in high school. I gave up on that nonsense once I graduated and got a car, which meant I had to be coherent enough in the morning to not kill myself in said car. Makeup time quickly turned into COFFEE COFFEE COFFEE time.
2. Even when I wore makeup, I never did foundation because the palest shades they had were still too dark for my fishbelly-white self, so:
3. Figuring out what foundation works best for a black woman is really out of my area of expertise. Especially when I'm supposed to pick something from a rack.
She kept grabbing bottles and trying stuff on, and after a while (ladies, you know what I mean when I say a quarter-sized glob is a lot of that shit) it all sort of ran together and I couldn't see the difference anymore. To further complicate things, she'd open the bottle, swab some out, close the bottle, and put it back so after I said I preferred A over B, or C over D, or.. I think it went to M over N or something... I was then asked, do you remember which one it was?
Bleu, meanwhile, was hiding at the other end of the aisle all LA LA LA I DON'T KNOW ANY OF THE PEOPLE IN THE STORE. I decided I would Not Be Having with this lack of backup, and went and got her. "You wear foundation," I started, to Bleu.
Foundation Lady says: "You don't?"
Indi: "No. I, um--" [realizing that "because it doesn't come in Mime, and anyway the dog thinks it tastes like candy" is not going to work here] "-- uh, my skin doesn't like it. Breaks out something awful."
Foundation Lady: "But your skin looks so good! You're not wearing anything?"
Indi: "Nah. I break out, it's awful, I go red. I look like a lobster then."
Foundation Lady, smearing another wad of foundation on: "What about this one?"
Indi: "I'unno. Blend it more."
[She does.]
Bleu: "THAT ONE. GO WITH THAT ONE."
Indi: "It's, um." [off Bleu's glare] "Yeah! I like that. It works better than the others."
Foundation Lady: "But I was thinking of this one, on this side - which side, d'you think?"
Bleu, ready to run: "THAT SIDE."
Indi: "Yeah, that one."
Foundation Lady: "Hmm, yeah, it does cover better. Cos my skin does this thing, you see it?"
Indi: [off another glare from Bleu] "Not under the makeup I don't!"
Foundation Lady: [happily] "Look, it's two for ten bucks! You girls are so nice, thank you!"
Ten minutes later...
Bleu: "How come stuff like that always happens to you?"
Indi: "How come stuff like that never happens to you?!"
Bleu: "I don't look at people."
Indi: "That helps?"
Bleu: [Indi, you are an idiot] "Uh, yeah. Hey, look - chocolate."
So then we got chocolate, because it only doesn't have fat in it when I buy it for other people.