Mary Kay Experience

The Mary Kay Experience

So, last week I was talked into being a Mary Kay model for a Mary Kay Director and the consultants that work for her. I love doing make-up and occasionally being girly so I thought it would be fun.

I was asked to show up at around quarter after six so that the director could go over some sales techniques and things before I got there. I showed up exactly on time and the director hadn’t quite finished up. I took a seat next to the consultants and let the director finish.

The director had given each of the consultants a sheet of paper with a picture of Barbie on it and tips for looking professional. The director made it clear to each woman there that they were not to leave the house in pants unless they were going to a soccer game. Skirts and dresses all the time. Then things started getting a little scary. The director told the women that they were to portray the Mary Kay image all of the time and even if they were going to one of their children’s soccer games, they were to have their “face on” and their hair “floofed.”

I still don’t know how to floof my hair, but I damn well know that I don’t want to do it everyday, nor do I want to portray a Barbie image all the time. It would take a lot more than Mary Kay makeup to make me look like Barbie and that is just fine with me. I don’t care if I don’t look gorgeous when I go hiking or am just hanging out in the barn on the weekend. If I’m not at work and not going out, I will be in jeans and a t-shirt. I like it that way. Call it some of the 12yr old tomboy coming out in me, but who wants to be perfect all of the time. I just want to be me not three types of eyecream and two shades of lipgloss.

Happiness

(If you read my first blog, this is the first of my crazy ramblings that I refered to.)

I am at a point in my life where I have figured out who I am, but I am still working on what I want and what I need. I need goofy, I need spontaneity, I need passion, I need reassurance, and I need someone who will push me and force me to question my actions. I don’t know all of what I need. I just know that even if all of what I seem to need is there, it doesn’t mean that it is what I want which is a whole different basket of fruit. (that is the weirdest thing to say ever)

How can I find everything that I think that I need and not want it? Is it because I am scared of being happy? I mean it would be quite the change. I don’t know how I would handle it. Being happy is actually really frightening. If you are happy, you don’t have to strive to be better or different, you can just be content with what you are. I don’t’ know if I am ready for that. I guess that it is almost impossible to be happy in all aspects of life; it might be unobtainable. I don’t know if I am depressed or relieved by the last sentence. I don’t even know whether I should be depressed or relieved. Wow the condition of being human is really messed up. (that came from somewhere, maybe Brie’s paper…can’t quite put my finger on it.)

My god I am analytical. I should be some kind of engineer or something. I have to examine every aspect of my thought process constantly. It’s no wonder I am absent minded, I am too busy trying to figure out what I meant and how I felt in every situation that I have ever been thrown into. I am going to drive myself mad. I should stop analyzing and start living.

I think that I am just freaking out about what I need because I like to feel in control of my emotions which allows me to follow my gut and not my heart. I am logical and when I am not, I get nervous. There is nothing more daunting than feeling like someone else controls how you feel. Especially when you know that they have no idea that they have control of it and you don’t know if they are what you need or are even good for you.

Forget all of the above. I no longer believe in the fallacy of happiness. At least I can know that I can strive for the “pursuit of happiness” however trivial the pursuit is. (nothing to do with the game) Maybe the pursuit is the closest any of us will ever get to true happiness. The rest of it all is just ignorance to what we should be worrying about and what should be bringing us down.

Viva Las Vegas

Nikki B.
4-19-05

If Only it Was the Drugs

So anyone who has been following my hebs probably knows that I haven’t been having the greatest week. Anyone who actually knows me knows that my week has been much worse than my hebs have let on. If you haven’t been reading my hebs, don’t worry. I will set the scenario for you.
It was 5:30ish on Friday afternoon. I knocked back a couple of codeine and had just fallen asleep in my bedroom at my best friend’s house (long story for a different heb.) My tonsils were still swollen to the point of not being able to swallow my own spit and my mind was completely selfishly focused.
I heard my cell phone ring next to my head; always a pleasant wake-up call. I looked at the number: some crazy area code I had never heard of. I thought about hitting the silence button and rolling over, but I had already ignored one phone call from the same number that day.
I answered the phone to hear my mothers voice and instantly regretted answering. She had told me that she was going to meet one of her new boyfriend’s friends in Maryland and I didn’t really want to hear about every freaking place they had visited.
She asked how I was feeling. I told her that I couldn’t talk and that I was trying to sleep. She said that she was sorry to hear that, but that she had to tell me something.
She then in her oblivious happy voice that I have heard so many times before started to tell me about her trip. It turns out that it was quite the trip. She didn’t go to Maryland, she went to Las Vegas. My extremely naïve mother decided to elope and had to wake me up from a Codeine nap to tell me. Can anyone say midlife crisis.
I haven’t been that mad at her in a long time. She can marry whoever the hell she wants, but this was ridiculous. My mother hasn’t been dating this guy for a whole four months.
It didn’t really hit me until I hung up the phone, just how little I knew about this guy. I immediately burst into tears. That was the first time in my life that I have ever really considered my mother irrational. I didn’t even know her new last name. I instantly had two step brothers. I have only met one of them. One is nine and the other is eleven. I didn’t even know the eleven-year-olds name.
I knew that she would marry the guy. I just didn’t realize that it would be half as soon as it was. I thought maybe I would have a chance to get to know him. Hell, she doesn’t even know him. You can’t know someone in four months, no matter how much time you spend together in those months.
Call me a skeptic of love in the first place, but I think that there is a difference in loving someone and being in love in with someone. Maybe it is possible to love someone in four months, but you can’t be in love with someone you don’t know. It is near impossible to be in love with someone you have known for a year.
Honestly, I don’t care how she screws up her own life. It is all hers to make mistakes with. The only thing that I am really worried about is my little brother. How stupid is it to involve children into irrational behavior. My brother has no say in who my mother marries, but it will greatly affect his life. How intelligent is it to make a man you don’t know a permanent fixture in your child’s life.
If it was anyone else and I wasn’t hurt by the situation and my brother wasn’t involved, I think that I would find it pretty comical. What is even more funny than the story itself is a crazy thought that ran through my head on Saturday. I was sitting talking to my best friend’s mother about my mother. All of a sudden, I looked at her and said “Wouldn’t it be funny if the whole thing about my mother was all a Codeine enhanced dream.” Needless to say, she made me check my caller Id.

When Not to make a Joke

My father is a funny man. I will give him that. He can make almost anyone laugh and is always the life of the party, but sometimes he just goes to far and has awful timing. Last Wednesday would be a perfect example.

I am dealing with a pretty severe case of mono and Wednesday has probably been the worst day of it. My dad had to pick me up and take me back to the doctor because I was having trouble breathing due to my extremely swollen tonsils (I know its disgusting). He took one look at me and told me I looked pretty rough and I would have to agree. I had the chills and was shivering the whole way to the doctors office. I felt like crap and just wanted to lie down. I thought that I was going to pass out so I made my dad go get me some water while we waited for the nurse to call my name.

Somehow I managed to make it through the appointment. The doctor gave me codeine and Prednisone which is some kind of steroid that they don't really like to give people especially for long periods of time. It was supposed to be a miracle drug that would reduce the swelling back to normal in 12 hours, which it has yet to do 48 hours later. The doctor warned me that the prednisone could cause some swelling in my hands and feet, which was honestly the least of my concern.

On our way out of the doctors office I managed to throw up all of the orange juice and water that I could handle swallowing. I was so pissed. It took me a damn long time to make sure that I wasn't going to get dehydrated not to mention the pain of swallowing. I couldn't believe all that work was completely gone in two seconds. I felt so defeated.

Dad drove me to Walgreen’s and went in to get my prescription while I napped in the car. He came back twenty minutes later with water, vitamins and my meds. As we started to drive dad was telling me about all of the side effects that the pharmacist had explained to him. Dad decided to through in one of his own and told me that in addition to the possible swelling in my hands and feet that it was possible for my face and forehead to swell. He said, "Nik, that will be so funny. You'll look just like Crowe Magnum Man." I started to cry and told him that it wasn't funny. He said that he was sorry and that he was just kidding.

What the hell was running through his head. He already knew that my usually good sense of humor was temporarily gone and that I felt like shit. He couldn't have picked a worse time to piss me off. I think under normal circumstances I would have figured out that he was kidding, but I seemed like such a cruel time to make a joke that it didn't even cross my mind.

heb 10

Nikki B.
3-30-05
Heb 10

Research Narrative
So here I am before I have even started researching. Honestly, I am not too excited about this Heb. It is going to be very hard for me to make this interesting.
I guess that I am going to start with researching Chris Ware on Google. It would be pointless to sift through all of the people trying to sell me one of Chris Ware’s books so I am going to search under “Chris Ware critics” and hope for the best.
Well I can say that I hoped, turns out that a few promising links to Yale and the BBC turned out to be useless, and my best result came from a blogger type review called “Poopsheet: Reviews.” The most interesting thing that he had to say about Ware is that he loved his attention to detail, but that is fairly useless. I also found an interview with another comic, Tymothi Godek, that praised Ware and interestingly enough brought up Scott McCloud.
So I just realized that I really have to do this at the library. Maybe I should read directions twice when I start. I probably should select all and delete, but this is a journey right? I like to think of it as a bump in my journey. A bump that I am not really all that enthused about, if I’m not going to lie. So off to the library I go.
Lucky enough for all of those of you who are bored enough to read this, my experience at the library played out more like an Indiana Jones movie than anything else (at least in the beginning). So you can call me Georgia Jones (still a state, but a little more feminine--wow I am a dork).
It started with the long treacherous journey to Memorial Library. I braved my way through the crowds of people and descended Bascom Hill where I was almost backed over by a dump truck. Close call, but that wouldn’t stop me.
Upon entering the mysterious library, which I hoped held my grail of information on Chris Ware, I was questioned by the guardsmen. One must be very careful with these sorts of people, they are unstable and can be easily agitated.
After sneaking past the guard I faced “the gate.” It swung with such a force that it threatened to amputate both of my legs from the thigh down. Don’t worry, I didn’t let such a gate or my clumsiness deter me from my goal.
Now for the real challenge. I faced the computer, which would make or break my mission. I had to decode the system and find out where the information about Chris Ware was hidden. My first combination was to type Chris Ware into the key words search. No luck. I should have know that it couldn’t be that simple. Next I tried “Chris Ware.” This presented a few leads. It looked like I had found exactly what I was looking for with a book by Daniel Raeburn, but then there it was: “Checked out—due back the 12th.” Damn them. I knew that I couldn’t be the only one on this mission. I knew I had to work fast.
After numerous failed attempts, I tried to go back and find something through the databases. Lexus Nexus provided nothing as did everything else that I tried through the databases. I found a few leads that looked promising, but left me disappointed and frustrated.
Finally I lost the ego and asked for a little assistance. Turns out this so called specialist wasn’t so good at her job. I think she was new. She gave me nothing to work with, thus frustrating me more. That meant that I would have to brave it alone.
I’m not going to lie, I thought maybe I could find a shortcut by looking up critics of Chris Ware on Google. Bingo—kind of. I found an amateur website (http://www.pitt.edu/~ync8/i-like-reviews/ware.htm) which had some good links.
One of the links was an awesome info on Chris Ware on CNN.com. It was an article about Ware and his books, including an interview. Beth Nissen provided some interesting information with this article. She talked about how Ware met his father half way through writing “Jimmy Corrigan” and how Jimmy is based off Chris himself. I found it quite interesting. (For the record: http://archives.cnn.com/2000/books/news/10/03/chris-ware/index.html.)
I tried to look up the article up in the journal magazine search, but found nothing. Next I looked at more of the links that I had previously found. I found an article by Fiachra Gibbons wrote another article on Ware. This one was about him winning the Guardian First Book Award. Apparently it is pretty prestigious and comes with £10,000 . (http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,6109,614821,00.html). Once again I thought that maybe I could find a paper copy. It seemed to me that it was a fairly real possibility considering that “The Guardian” is a newspaper, but nope. Once again I was left frustrated.
I looked at my watch. My time had more than run out because this was not my only mission that I was running. Two hours at the library and I had in sight what I was looking for, but it was out of reach. Maybe I’m just not cut out to play Georgia Jones. Somehow I don’t think that she would have left frustrated, annoyed, disheartened, irritated, and empty-handed. But make certain that I may have left empty handed, but not due to a lack of effort.

An Easter Like no Other

Nikki B
3-9-05
An Easter Like No Other
While all of you are all counting down the days until spring break, I am already counting the days until I get to come back from spring break. I hate to be negative, but I know I will never have a spring break as bad as this one. In fact, I am pretty sure that getting my wisdom teeth pulled on the first day of spring break is going to be the highlight.
This spring break won’t be like any I have ever had. Most years we would go somewhere like Florida or Colorado or at least go to visit my relatives in Racine. My mom’s whole side of the family would get together and celebrate Easter. I have a huge family and I am close to all of them. To me, that is how holidays are supposed to be celebrated. I wouldn’t want them any other way.
This Easter will be much different. I haven’t even decided if I am going to go to Racine to celebrate Easter. It is going to be different because my dad is refusing to come along and I don’t want to spend my holiday without him.
Even after my parents got divorced, my dad has always come to her side of the family functions. Some people think this is kind of weird, but my dad’s side of the family lives in Oklahoma, Texas, and Kansas so we don’t visit very often and if my dad didn’t come to my mom’s family functions, he would be home alone. I would never let that happen.
There have been awkward moments, but I was always glad that he came. My mom’s family all loves him too. My uncles are some of my dad’s best friends. They hunt together and talk car stuff. It is almost like my mom divorced my dad, but her family didn’t and from talking to them, they don’t want to.
Last night on the phone with my father, he told me that my mom had invited him to Easter at my grandparents house. Then she told him that she was bringing her new boyfriend. She though maybe my dad would like to meet him first and she asked him if he wanted to go out to dinner with him so that he could get to know him.
I can’t believe that my mother is so naïve. She has only been dating this guy for three months and is bringing him home for the holidays, which will completely ruin the holiday to begin with. Everyone is uncomfortable with the idea, including my relatives, but me most of all.
I don’t want to leave my father home alone for Easter. I also haven’t had a chance to see my relatives in Racine for a long time and I would love to get a chance to see them. I am completely torn, thus this spring break is going to suck.
My dad told me to go to Racine, because even if she was bringing the new boyfriend, she was still my mother and that I should see my relatives. I just don’t feel right about it. No one should be alone during the holidays and I won’t enjoy it if I think about my dad sitting at home by himself.
Maybe I can pretend that the drugs from getting my wisdom teeth are affecting me enough that I don’t want to drive. (Maybe I won’t have to pretend.) It would be a win win situation and I won’t have to see all of the food that I shouldn’t eat with stitches in my mouth anyway. No matter what happens, it isn’t going to be an enjoyable spring break.

A Time to Grow Up

Nikki B.
3-1-05
Heb. 7ish
A Time to Grow Up

The years that we spend living on our own are the best years to grow up. Being responsible for ourselves gives us a chance to make our mistakes, act a little crazy, and figure out what we really want. Living alone for a while and allowing yourself to struggle a little allows you to appreciate what you can accomplish on your own.
I can see a definite difference in people who have never experienced living alone or being completely free of obligation. They often feel like they missed out on something. Being independent gives you the chance to choose which burdens you want to take on yourself. When the burdens you choose are your own, you know that they are what you wanted and not forced upon you. It may even be a preventative measure for a mid-life crisis.
The best example of this that I could ever come up with is my mother. (Although she may not appreciate this anecdote.) My mother married my father a year out of high school. She never lived alone and she never had the chance to be young and decide what she really wanted from life.
My mother wasn’t married a year by the time I was born and instantly she was thrown into a situation of the most responsibility possible. She didn’t have the chance to choose her burdens and it left her living out her life through other people. She attempts to be what everyone else wants her to be because she doesn’t know what she wants her to be.
Now that my parents are divorced, my mom is reliving her twenties. She finally has the chance to figure out what she wanted to do the first time around, but unfortunately she is trying to figure this out through me. She wears the same kind of clothes I wear, listens to virtually the same kind of music, and wants to hang out with my college friends. (Thank god she doesn’t live that close or visit that often.)
My friends couldn’t believe it when my mother called and told us that she wanted to go out with us on Halloween to State St. and then stay with us in my dorm room. I couldn’t really believe it either. I told her she was crazy and that there was no way in hell that I was letting my mother tag along. You don’t bring your mother to house parties and she didn’t quite understand why. Her solution was that I didn’t have to tell everyone she was my mom. (Did I mention she is a genius?...)
She is currently dating a man who is older than her and seems to be a little more stable. I hope that she is finally growing up. Somehow at 39, it is about time. I think she just needed the five years that my parents have been divorced to figure herself out. I have seen a big change in her in the last four months that she has been dating her new boyfriend. I think she might have outgrown her twenties, hopefully for the last time.
I think that if she would have had the chance to figure all of this out before she got married, this never would have happened and she would be a woman with a little more self confidence. She is unsure how to be completely independent, but I think these five years have also given her a chance to practice being as independent as she can be.
I have seen so many people who have gone through mid-life crisis and most of them didn’t have the chance to be independent. My mother wasn’t like this during the 15 years my parents spent married, it was when she finally had the opportunity to be “20” that she went for it. Without this important segment of life, it can leave a person feeling trapped in something that they never wanted in the first place. Don’t ever let yourself skip this unique period of life that gives you the chance to draw your own conclusions about the world and about what is right for you.