Bad Grrl

I am a failed student of Beauty Standards 101.

I'm about to turn 35, and I have no idea how to do my hair or makeup. I've never, ever, been good at doing my own hair—which is why I've had variations on a bob at different lengths and combinations of layering for more than half my life now, except when I've just let it grow and grow to my waist before getting it chopped again. And I've never, ever, been able to put on makeup worth a damn. I tried to apply liquid eyeliner once and was nearly mistaken for a meth-addled raccoon by wilderness control, which was the comparatively successful attempt of my infrequent forays into makeup-wearing.

The whole thing has always amused me, and it never really mattered—except now I've got melasmas on my cheeks, probably because I've got PCOS, and people are starting to ask what happened to my face. I'm afraid Iain's going to start getting sideways glances, because they look like bruises, so I figured I'd maybe try to cover them when we went out or wev.

He doesn't care, of course.

So I got this makeup, and I was just sitting and staring at it like it's the ingredients of a rare Greek stew I've been asked to make, having never even tasted it, when the phone rang. It was Portly Dyke. She asked what I was doing.

"Realizing that if I were lost on a desert island, I'd look exactly the same as I do now."

And because she is a bad grrl, too, she knew exactly what I meant, and she laughed.