I did a whole pamper thing over the weekend. Massage, facial, manicure, scalp massage all very nice. I spent the afternoon feeling thoroughly metrosexual. Or at least I would have if my clothes hadn't been second hand. The facial was a bit of an ego shaker however. I'm not the best looking person in the world (sometimes I have difficulty being the best looking person in my flat) but as the facial doing person reeled off a list of hideous blemishes that I hadn't even known existed I wondered if the elephant man needed a stand in.
Sadly it would appear that the fresh bloom I had on my cheeks when I was young has faded and now my yellowed eyes peer out of my sunken, greasy hide while blackheads and broken capillaries fight for dominance over the wreckage of my features. Then she smeared some stuff on my ravaged face, buffed my talons and now I'm beautiful again. Or at least I will be if I buy a bunch of moisturisers, lotions, creams and spend slightly longer doing my face than the average drag queen. Actually she got off lightly, I'm booked in for a pedicure in a couple of weeks and whoever does that is going to have a heart attack. Not even I try to pretend my feet are the best part of my body.
As a crack team of dedicated professionals tried desperately to hold the advancing tide of age at bay I lay there and enjoyed being pampered. All of the above took two and a half hours to complete and I can't help thinking that as age rolls on one would have to spend more and more time in order to look less and less good. By the time I'm fifty I'll be living at the salon and will only venture out for a five minute stretch when the masters of illusion have rendered me more or less acceptable to the public gaze. Then a sunbeam will strike me and with my skin melting I will flee back for another treatment.
At least that's one option, the other and more likely option is that I will reluctantly embrace my decay in return for having a few extra hours in the day. I'm not a movie star or a politician, there is no particular reason why the public should see anything but the unvarnished me (subject to local indecency laws of course).
People like to look good though, however they define good. Some people spend half their lives in a beauty salon so that the people they meet in the other half think they spend all their life in a beauty salon. Some people shave, tattoo, pierce, scar (that one's a bit creepy but I've seen it look good) or whatever and all with the same imperative; to present to the public the face they want the public to see. Is there any fundamental difference between the woman who puts on three layers of makeup before she leaves the house and the woman who runs a chain between the piercings in her ear, nose and nipples? I don't think so except that I'm more likely to ask the latter one out on a date.
Even I like to look good although I'm far too lazy to put any great effort into it. Occasionally I get halfway there more or less by accident and I feel quite pleased with myself. Most of the time I settle for being clean. I walk down the street in clean clothes, with a freshly showered body and I feel; average. Seriously nobody should get too excited just walking down a street. If the reaction of passersby is going to be the highlight of your day you have way more things wrong with your life than just make up issues.
I feel I have got off the track with this blog entry, I have wandered far from the path of righteousness and into the garden of self indulgence where I have picked blooms of moisturiser and danced in fairy rings of massages and manicures. Then I started rabbiting on about makeup and body piercing. I'm finding it difficult to remember what I was trying to say or even if I was saying anything at all. A quick review of the previous entries in this blog convinces me that I probably wasn't. I don't even know what a fairy ring is.
Entropy increases, things decay and nothing lives forever or even for very long. So what the hell you might as well try and look good when they nail down the lid. Or better yet get your teeth filed to points and scare the crap out of your younger relatives when they come to the viewing. Although with all the vampire movies around nowadays they'll probably hammer a stake through your heart just to be on the safe side.
So what is the point of prettying up our rapidly decaying bodies in the hopes that entropy will pass us by and move on to that couple in their sixties who have obviously given up hope? Well I'm typing this blog with my newly manicured fingers and I'm quite ridiculously delighted at how smooth and glossy my nails are.
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I think what you meant to say is that the law of entropy applies even to entropy itself....
ReplyDeleteFunnily enough, I know what you mean; there's a thing that buffs nails in Ayako's bathroom that I played with the other day. It's amazing what a difference it makes. Looking at one's newly shined nails is a surprisingly pleasant experience, but fortunately the male tendency to slovenliness (1st cousin to the law of entropy) keeps us from getting wolf-whistled down the pub