Eyes Lined Up

The Art of Making Up One's Mind

I cannot recall where, but I read a quote that gave me a wry smile, probably decades ago, which said, “I put lipstick on my forehead to make up my mind.”

Make-up as applied by people could be to accentuate the positive, conceal the unseemly, or exaggerate the bizarre. I wouldn't know, as I use neither lipstick nor blusher, but I have my mind made up about a few things.

A Modern Avon Lady

After paying for groceries this evening at Aldi, I walked past a cashier at one of the checkouts and my eyes were drawn to hers, as they were marked out with dark eyeliner; you could not miss them. I thought she might be a quintessential Aldi lady, in profession and looks, borrowing the idea of Avon ladies from a time before.

Canal Street’s Spectacle

Then on Canal Street in Manchester, the centre of the Gay Village, there are lots of female impersonators or drag queens in desperately outlandish make-up, and the less said of their apparel and high-heeled footwear that would commit the sensible to the emergency room of an orthopaedic hospital, the better. They regale us with offers of cheap drinks to patronise the clubs they represent.

I am left wondering whether this is for them a profession they get paid for or just a hobby. I had a fascination for that subculture and their performances in the early 1990s, but I am much less enamoured by the spectacle today.

From Subculture to Mainstream

Yet, this genre has gained global reality television popularity in the drag race competitions started by RuPaul. One such drag queen from Manchester was a runner-up in the inaugural UK series.

In my view, no self-respecting woman would go to the extent of a drag queen, except perhaps ladies of a certain persuasion of questionable repute. Yet, in the case of the drag queen I saw on my way home, there was both eyeliner and eyeshadow that would make Nefertiti blush.

The Fine Line Between Art and Excess

The use of make-up can be abused, and it does get abused to garish and grotesque levels. Some end up quite ghoulish, enough to put you to great fright if observed in dim light. However, all we can do is be entertained from a distance. We wouldn’t want to be represented by them so closely that the association becomes difficult and inconvenient.

On Spectacle and Proximity

There's something revealing about our relationship with spectacle. We’re drawn to what's unusual, extreme, even outrageous, yet we instinctively maintain a boundary between observation and involvement. A rather blunt Yoruba saying captures this tension: “A mad man is a sight to watch in the marketplace, but not a joy to have as a relation.”

The proverb isn’t really about madness; it's about how we engage with what lies outside our norms. We watch, we’re entertained, perhaps even fascinated, but we preserve distance. It’s an honest, if uncomfortable, acknowledgement of how most of us actually behave towards those we find bewildering or excessive.

Yet this instinct towards separation deserves examination. We may counter it with the humbling reflection of John Bradford: “There but for the grace of God go I.” We are no better than the other but for grace, mercy, and fortune. What separates the observer from the observed may be nothing more than circumstance, upbringing, or mere chance.

This is not a critique or a celebration, just a neutral observation inviting conversation and opinion.

Blog - I wear lipstick (November 2005)

A Google NotebookLM AI Podcast on this blog

The fellowship of eyebrows

Eyebrows in the spotlight

My beau is always ready to run a clipper through his hair long before it has grown, however, anytime his scalp is shorn something else comes to prominence, his eyebrows. Quite a few names come to mind when I think of eyebrows. Alistair Darling whose coiffed highlights are boldly contrasted to his darkened eyebrows.

Then we have the megalomaniac, Robert Maxwell whose storied life is one of notoriety and ignominy that appears to have congenitally afflicted his daughter Ghislaine who languishes under the US justice system for her association with Jeffrey Epstein, the alleged sex abuser and trafficker. He boasted a distinct set of brushers.

All the face lights up

However, it is Denis Healey that takes the prize with decorative relish that would put an owl to shame. They arc upwards like horns; they cannot be unseen.

Now, Brian would not appear to be in the league of the Fellows of the Exaggerated Eyebrow Confraternity, but in the videos we exchange in the mornings, his choreographic prowess is demonstrated in his dancing eyebrows, as his fully expressive face exudes a light of happiness and the joy of smiles from the jawline including the eyes. Always a beauty to watch and for which I might again be told off to await punishment just for writing about this.

The eyes have it all

Life returns to Manchester

Yesterday, marked the first full week of the easing of lockdown measures with the opening of non-essential goods shops. Returning from church, the town centre was busy, tables and chairs outside for alfresco dining, crowds milling around as if the memories of a pandemic had long been forgotten.

Our penchant for queuing had opened up to a new order, with specific entrance and exit door, walking routes laid out in the shopping centre to help with social distancing, even though some just ignored the signs.

I first visited the public conveniences before going to the opticians. I last had an eye test 3 years ago and the right arm of my lens frame was beginning to disintegrate. The composite 3 layers were coming apart and when I tried to glue the bits together, I had more bonding of my fingertips than the object of repairs.

Fast-tracked on choice

They offered a 4:00 PM appointment which did not sound convenient if I had to return to the city centre to attend, so, I chose an early morning slot for Saturday. Then, I decided to look at the frames display, in the hope that something might catch my eye. Now, literally, all eyeglass frames are made by manufacturers in Italy, we are mostly paying exorbitant rates for brand names, the design aesthetic hardly having much diversity.

I found an O’Neill frame and asked a member of staff about setting it aside for my Saturday appointment, but before I knew it, I was fast-tracked into a consulting room where a whole battery of tests began, reading charts, blurred and clear dots, air blasted at my eyeballs, lights shone into the recesses of my eyes with pictures of blood vessels vivid to be scary, peripheral and field vision, my eyes were so tired after then workout short of popping the eye out and giving it a cold rinse before tossing it in a frying pan of hot oil and sticking it back in the socket.

Seeing everything anew

By the time we were done a good 90 minutes later, I had ordered two pairs of glasses with lenses exhibiting every quality of sight improvement except X-ray vision. The second cheaper pair offered at half-price and to be delivered to my home in about a fortnight. The eye test came free because there is a history of glaucoma somewhere in the family, which requires I return for eye tests annually rather than leave it until when my glasses or frames are falling apart.

I hope I made the right choice, in more convenient settings, I would have sought the advice of Brian before my selection. In the end, he might like them after taunting me about needed two pairs of glasses because there was a time, I forgot I had a pair on and donned another pair, I have never lived that down. Obviously, my comeback is just as embarrassing for him.

Never underestimate the benefits of good sleep

Sleeping off the pain

So I went to bed a bit unwell hoping to get some rest and relief from the pain. There is something about the healing power of sleep or maybe it is the calming effect of sleep.

Now, I rarely have long stretches of sleep, usually never more than 4 hours at best, but as much as possible it is restful and relaxing. It is one reason why I do not like my sleep disturbed since I am rarely one to be stirred from sleep to roll over and fall asleep again.

However, just like when I had to manage the pain of cancer, when I was tired enough, I just fell asleep and with that, my thoughts and consciousness are taken off concentrating on the pain exacerbating its effect, likewise with my eyeball hurting, I wrapped up and found two hours of restful and literally dreamless sleep.

Restored and refreshed

When I woke up, apart from feeling a bit hungry, the pain had gone and it was way past the time to take my pills too. Some immediate concerns trumped the regimen of pill-popping.

As for the healing power of sleep, I woke a lot better and quite ready to sleep off again, probably because I put my mind to it. Another 90 minutes past before I got up and had some coleslaw for a bit of strength before doing a bit of work and resting until dawn broke.

I am a lot better now, not nauseous, some bearable discomfort, but I’ll be fine. Thanks for all the best wishes.

Never underestimate the benefits of good sleep.

Battling with my vulnerabilities to pain

The eye of pain

Quietly, I have been going about things as if it did not matter. I’ve been in pain for the past few hours, my right eyeball giving me such discomfort, and I am no wiser as to why.

I have placed a cold pad over it to ease the pain, and I would have taken painkillers if I was not already feeling so nauseous.

I cannot attribute anything to this uncomfortable feeling, though it does feel like I am coming down with something I do not want to yield to.

No glory in emesis

Thrice, I have been bent over the toilet bowl, ready for emesis, salivating a lot the first two times and then finally evacuating my guts the third time.

The horrid feeling is that if you are vomiting on an empty stomach, you convulse and retch, groan and contort without much to show for it. Nasty does not describe the feeling.

When the retching stopped, I poured a bowl of cold water over my head and appeared to calm down. The eyeball pain is still there, but I probably should just take a rest.

Have me in your thoughts. Good night!

Thought Picnic: The onion of truths

The anatomy of onions

It is all there in the blog he always tells friends and the other day a friend hinted that the information there is probably much clearer than interactive issues on the matters on which he opines conversationally, personal or peripheral.

Like onions, one peels into the structure to the core, the story and essence is all contained in this awkward journal that is already in its seventh year.

More of that self is revealed in what has lately been an avalanche of full disclosure and as the tide runs out some swimmers are suddenly going to be running for cover with the revelation that they had been swimming naked.

Peeling into the truth

It does not matter anymore because it would be learnt and there can only be great sympathy for those who cannot handle that truth.

The truth is more like an onion too, on the surface it has a skin and as it is peeled away you get to the detail, cut it for use and your eyes begin to water – irritation, sadness, joy or just plain emotion – leave the onion alone and the truth remains hidden; sometimes, it is best not to handle a truth that can be so volatile.

Knowledge is there and it is shared in a jumble or as a lucky-dip, someone always has something to take away, if you are not in the position of each of the 6 blind men’s perspective of the elephant, you do not yet have an elephant as a seeing man would know.

For those who had been allowed to know it was known that one might be fruitful in some other ways but never multiply in a particular way for years – the burden of concealing this fact exacerbates the desires of others to force the matter.

Deep in the onion

Every seeming palliative method has been deployed without much success but a continued and persistent pressure for adaptation and conformation clouds the focus that no one knows we are now at the core of the onion, the nuclear core is in view and the bitter truth explodes in the face of eyes ready to stream down with rivers of salt tasting waters – it cannot be done and let it no more depend on luck.

Talking of taste, the onion appears to do wonders to any dish, the dishes served in the blog are really the a la carte of a life being lived which might not have your best needs on the menu by which time it is safer to walk out of the restaurant before a bout of food poisoning becomes the lesson to trust instincts rather than tastes.

If there were to be a guidance certificate as a safety precaution to administering large doses of the truth or the usage of too many onions in the dish, it would be to never ask questions for answers you might not be ready for; before you get that far, if you must dice the onion, wear some goggles.