UNDER THE MICROSCOPE

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2002-10-01 - 9:02 p.m.

This entry is this month�s collaboration for On Display. This month�s topic is �masks.�

WAR PAINT

I wear a mask daily. I didn�t always. For years, I didn�t wear a mask at all. Later, I didn�t wear one at home and saved it for work. Now I wear it virtually all the time. Yes, I�m talking war paint. I�m talking eye shadow, lipstick, blush and such.

I�m not sure when I started wearing this mask every day. The action just crept up on me. Some people would say that I finally have adapted to my surroundings here in the suburbs where life is as beautiful as a woman can make it and trophy wives are as plentiful as the weeds in my garden (and boy, are they plentiful!). Hair, nails, and makeup are favorite topics out here and badges of honor. Yet I�ve never stuck to the safe suburban wife topics or safe suburban wife behavior.

My surroundings also are my office where makeup, hair, and careful dressing are rarely practiced if not actively discouraged. People who make their living taking on the system do not tend to value conformity with larger societal norms. Yet I tend to think of myself as a stealth subversive, if not a true individualist, and war paint and very professional clothing goes with that image.

So why do I wear this mask? It�s not for Mr. Philately. He is barely okay with eye shadow and he hates lipstick. He loathes it. He thinks it looks cheap. The more color the lipstick has, the less he likes it. The best he�ll say about it is that I apply it as well as it can be done. I�m not sure what the worst he would say about it is because he is smart enough not to voice that opinion around me. He�d rather get along with me.

Somehow that this makeup is tied to my perception of my power�and if I wear this mask, the goblins won�t get me. I keep coming back to the notion of war paint. War paint, after all, is almost talismanic. You put it on to ward off evil. The question is the evils that I am attempting to hold at bay. I�d hate to think that I was shallow enough to be trying to ward off old age although perhaps there is a touch of that.

In any event, I have my mask on�so don�t mess with me.

LAST YEAR: Ads R Us

LAST FIVE ENTRIES:

Longing for Green Stamps
Honesty
Inside the Box
The Right Question
Silence as a Measure

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