Category Archives: fashion

Practical Beauty Tips

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If you want to look like a million bucks, get real! And by that, I don’t mean using all-natural charcoal slug placenta serum on your extremities. No, I’m talking about budget reality. You don’t have expendable income that would cover a single day of Angelina Jolie’s beauty regimen. What you need are practical tips like these.

How to exfoliate. Before you bathe, rub your face vigorously with a dry, rough towel. Take a hot shower. After you do, rub your face vigorously with a dry, rough towel. Your epidermis will disappear in a trice. You’ll have a luminescent pink glow just like someone who has lived through ionizing radiation, without the expense of costly fissionable materials.

How to use bath bombs. If you have a bathtub, the directions on the package will work pretty well, as long as you don’t mix up your bath bomb with the similar kind of bombs that you drop into pots of soup for seasoning. The curry and chili varieties may prove painful or leave your skin an interesting new color. But a bath with your bouillon bomb will leave you with an appealing fragrance that attracts hungry men and dogs.

If you have a shower rather than a bath, wrap the bomb in a piece of cheesecloth like a bouquet garni and hang it from the shower head. (Be careful. The bouquet garni technique may confuse you and make it more likely that you will douse yourself with a miso or onion soup bomb. But I digress.)

How to select a fragrance. Go to the perfume counter these days and you’ll think you’re in the produce section of the grocery store. Natural, vegetal scents are the current trend. Think of lemon wedges, herbs, and any vegetable that can be carved into the shape of a rose. Throw them in your blender and garnish your pulse points with them. If you want, take the leftovers from your lunch salad and whiz them up. Don’t forget to put a sprig of parsley behind one ear. Think of it as a leafy, green fascinator.

How to accessorize. Coco Chanel famously advised that when you’re ready to leave the house, remove one accessory before you go. Lose the brooch. (No one ever pronounces it properly anyway. It rhymes with “roach,” not “cooch.” But I digress again.) Or ditch the parsley fascinator. If you’re wearing earrings, the greenery will be un peu de trop.

How to get an eye-catching tattoo. Text tattoos are always popular. You can convey an important message like “No Regrets,” “Slippery When Wet,” or “FTW.” The important thing to remember is to consult a proofreader before the tattoo machine revs up. Otherwise, you might end up with a permanent message that says, “No Regerts.” (Actually, “FTW” might end up as “WTF,” which could be what you say when you see it. But I digress some more.)

(If you want a Chinese symbol, which is a perennial classic, as a tattoo, it’s even more important to hire a knowledgeable proofreader. Most tattoo artists aren’t bilingual and will happily decorate you with characters that mean “oyster sauce” or “I’m ready for the first man I meet.” Assuming that’s not what you asked for. But I continue to digress.)

Next Week! Follow me for more Practical Beauty How-Tos: Tame Your Unibrow With a Birthday Candle; Get Your Weight-Loss Game on With Turnips; and Use Spackle to Freshen Your Look!

Hidden Tattoos

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My husband and I are, if not addicted to, at least fond of tattoos. (I’m one of those people that no one, including me, thought would ever be likely to get a tattoo. But I digress already.) For me, it started with small tattoos: punctuation that had nonobvious psychological meanings, and a stack of books (guess why).

My first major tattoo was a tribute to my mother: A yellow rose on a compass rose (that thingy on a map that points N, S, E, and W). My mother and I traveled together a lot, to Rio, England, and many places in the US, and her favorite flower was a yellow rose. I thought it was appropriate. It’s on my left shoulder.

Dan’s first tattoo was a bear paw on his right shoulder. He identifies with bears, perhaps because he looks like one, especially when naked (no photos available). I’d say it was his spirit animal, and it did appear to him in a dream once, but I know that’s an appropriation of an indigenous philosophy. (I explained that to him, but he got the tattoo anyway, and it suits him. But I digress again.)

We had ideas for future tattoos all lined up too. Dan wants a tat on his inner forearm (one of the only places he’s deficient in hair) of a musical note, a heart, and a dove—for music, love, and peace, of course. (He’s an old hippie. What can I say?) My idea is to get a tattoo of Orion with the phrase “We are made of star-stuff” underneath on my right shoulder. (Orion is my favorite constellation, and I took Carl Sagan’s class when I was in college. He’s one of my all-time heroes. I’m not sure how it would look, but my tattoo artist has done Orion before, so that’s a good thing. But I digress some more.)

Then it came to me—the tattoo we both should get: tattoos of hearts over our hearts. We saved up our money and waited until the tattoo artist had an opening. A little research showed that it was a traditional tattoo: a heart-shaped locket with a keyhole in the middle of it. I also saw ones that included a key, like the one in the illustration for this post.

We had some difficulty communicating our idea to the tattooist. Her original sketch had the locket colored gold instead of red. Gold isn’t a great color for a tattoo. It tends to fade quickly. (My yellow rose could use a touch-up.) But she soon fixed it and made it red. And she came up with a great idea—keys underneath the hearts with little labels attached to them. Mine would say “Dan” and his “Jan.” (I agreed to Jan rather than Janet because that would have made the lettering impossibly small. But I digress yet again.)

I know that people say you should never get a tattoo featuring the name of a boyfriend or girlfriend because of the possibility of breaking up. But Dan and I have been married for more than 43 years, so that seems unlikely.

This is the first tattoo either of us has gotten on a place on our bodies that’s unlikely to be seen by others unless we wear bathing suits, which we don’t. (Or skinny dip.) But that’s okay. It’s a private, personal thing, which is why I didn’t include actual photos of the tattoos here. It’s enough for us to know they’re there.

Let Your Freak Flag Fly

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To those of us who were hippies back in the 60s and 70s (and are now in our 60s and 70s), letting your freak flag fly meant something special. If I had to define it in two words, it meant Weird Pride. The straight world viewed us as weirdos, and, rather than being insulted, we embraced the title.

A lot of the controversy had to do with hair—specifically, long hair on men. I know it’s hard to believe now, in a time when anyone can do anything with their hair and not have anyone bat an eye, but back then it was a form of rebellion and a cause for discrimination. (There was a time when long hair was considered a job-killer. Beards too. Now about the only job-killer appearance I can think of is face tattoos. But I digress.)

It’s hard to let your freak flag fly anymore. There don’t seem to be any more freak flags. Not even hairstyles. Mohawks are passé. Shaved and partially shaved heads are accepted, even for women. Grandmothers are dying their hair green, pink, and blue—and not the kind of blue that used to be called a blue rinse. (Though many old ladies called it a blue wrench. I’m not sure why. But I digress again.)

It seems like the only way left to have a freak flag is based on your clothing. Even then it’s hard to do. I’m not talking about tie-dye, either. That can be worn by anyone, not just Deadheads. Mismatched, colorful socks won’t do it, and (unless you move in Martha Stewart’s orbit (which I don’t, needless to say) neither will wearing plaids with polka dots. (If you’re wearing a suit, the mismatched striped socks thing might work, but anything unusual worn with a suit would count as a freak flag (except an AR-15 pin, and maybe not even that in some surprising circles). Business suits are still an indicator of a non-freak. But I digress some more.)

Even non-clothing freak flags are getting more permissible. Psychedelic music is now on the oldies stations. Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In hasn’t worn well, even though you can find it on a streaming channel. Marijuana is legal in many states (does anyone still say weed, pot, Mary Jane, blunts, roaches, etc.?) and used for relief from physical pain and illnesses. Psychedelic and party drugs are being used for psychiatric illnesses.

Protest songs don’t even exist anymore, though they’re sorely needed, if you ask me. Vulgar and obscene t-shirt sayings barely rate a blink. There are places to go if you’re a nudist, gay, or kinky that don’t get raided. Bare feet are about the only things that can get you tossed out of restaurants.

There are no freak cars anymore either. People don’t paint their VWs with flowers. A VW bus is more likely to belong to a soccer mom than a commune. And when it comes to travel, no one has to go to Canada to evade the draft. There are no draft cards to burn. Teenagers don’t even know what the draft was, and Vietnam vets are old men and women.

Now I’m not saying these new sensibilities are bad things, not at all. It’s probably a good thing that more styles are not only acceptable but non-controversial. It’s great that people can express themselves more freely. Whenever my husband wears his Jerry Garcia t-shirt, people think it’s far out. (I know people don’t say “far-out” anymore. Or “groovy.” I can’t keep track of what they do say. Plus, my husband’s t-shirt usually draw remarks that he looks like the picture. But I digress yet again.)

Basically, if you can find a way to let your freak flag fly, do it!

How to Start a Conversation

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I never used to be any good at small talk. I would stand there, tongue-tied, while conversation went on around me. I was afraid I had turned invisible.

Then I met Erma the Armadillo, pictured here. She’s a purse that my mother bought for me from a catalog called, appropriately, What on Earth. This was back in the 90s, and I don’t think she spent more than $25 on the purse. When it came time to scare up a photo to go with this post, I found that today Erma is considered “vintage” and sells for as much as $140, used.

(I have a thing about armadillos. I fell in love with them when I learned that their main defensive technique is to jump straight up two feet, and their main natural predator is the automobile bumper. My defense mechanisms are like that, too. But I digress.)

Erma was actually a lousy purse. She was stuffed with cotton and had only a small zippered slot that would barely hold a driver’s license and a little cash. I had to carry anything else in my pockets. But what she was good at was starting conversations. Not that she spoke, but when other people saw her, they did.

People were fascinated. They always remarked on what an unusual purse Erma was. I would point out that she even had little tiny toenails printed on her stubby little feet. They’d ask where I’d gotten her. They’d ask why I wanted an armadillo purse. They’d ask more questions and share about other purses they’d seen or owned. Children were especially captivated by Erma. They couldn’t get over the fact that she wasn’t a toy and that she had handles. They always wanted to touch her, and I always let them.

When it comes to starting conversations with strangers, I always recommend accessories. My jewelry collection has some peculiar specimens. I have a sushi necklace that my friend Leslie made for me from air-dry clay. I also have a pair of bacon earrings, though I never mix cuisines in an outfit. Another set of earrings that people found amusing were the ones that looked like the planet Earth, complete with continents. (When I wore them, I liked to shake my head violently and shout, “Earthquake!” But I digress again.)

Conversation goes both ways, of course. “That’s an awesome (fill in the blank). Where did you get it?” is a good start on a good chat. People love to tell stories about their possessions, gifts, travels, etc. From there, conversation is an easy two-way street.

(It can fall flat from time to time. I once shared an elevator with a woman who had itsy-bitsy feet. I felt like I might have been staring at them. So I cleverly said, “Those are great boots! They make your feet look really small!” She replied, “They are really small.” After that, the conversation, and the elevator ride, ended. But I digress some more.)

I don’t know how people who don’t have unusual accessories start conversations. “Is that a good book you’re reading?” is one ploy, but it hardly ever works. Most people don’t read books in public, and if they do, they don’t like to be interrupted. And when I read books in public (which I do), I read them on my e-reader or phone, so the general public just thinks I’m doom-scrolling (which I don’t do).

Erma is no longer with me. Her handles wore out and Dan was unsuccessful at replacing them, which he tried to do. I don’t go out much anymore but when I do, I miss her. And the conversations.

It’s a Bird! It’s a Hat! It’s a …

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What it is, is a fascinator. Better known as that silly thing the women in the British Royal Family wear on the side of their heads.

They’re almost the only ones who wear fascinators anymore, and theirs are so large that they’re often mistaken for hats. And like hats, they often include elements such as netting, veiling, organdy, beads, flowers, and even feathers (hence the bird reference).

They’re different from hats, although. In general, they’re worn on the side of the head, though again the British Royal Family’s fascinators are so large that they perch on the side and spill over to the top of the head, or vice versa. They look like they want to grow up to be the hats that women wear to the Kentucky Derby but still have a ways to go.

You sometimes see fascinators on brides who don’t want to do the whole veil routine. Or you see them on the kinds of ladies who go to high tea and try to impress each other. (You don’t see them on me, largely because there’s this stupid rule that you don’t wear a fascinator with glasses (unless you’re the Queen of England (or Queen Consort, I suppose, if she wears glasses, which I don’t know, not being a Royal follower, though I’ve never seen a picture of her wearing glasses)), and I’m not willing to sacrifice sight for fashion. Or comfort for fashion, for that matter. I’m pretty sure there’s also a rule about not wearing a fascinator with pajamas. There’s also a rule that the escort of a woman wearing a fascinator should stand to her left, as the fascinator is worn on the right side of the head and this would impede conversation. That’s a lot of rules for a piece of headgear or an accessory or whatever. But I digress. At length.)

Fascinators impinged themselves on my consciousness recently because there’s a writer’s conference here in town this week. People have been posting on Facebook about rides to and from the airport and what to pack due to the weather in Dayton (layers was the best suggestion).

The writer’s conference is held in honor of Dayton native Erma Bombeck, and focuses on humorous and human-interest writing. There are sessions and seminars featuring noted writers and comedians, speed-pitch sessions with agents, a stand-up comedy contest, and a writing contest, as well as decadent chocolate cake and killer brownies. (There is a lot of chocolate around here. Some of the presenters even pass out M&Ms. It’s thought to spark creativity, and, as we learned in the Harry Potter books, chocolate really does help. I don’t think there are any studies on the effects of chocolate on creativity. All the evidence is bound to be anecdotal. But I digress again.)

Where was I? Oh, yes, fascinators. Well, people who attend this conference—the women at least (I think)—sometimes wear tiaras. And feather boas. And bunny slippers. Sometimes all at once, I suppose, at least for the overachievers.

Several first-timers noted the suggestion of such accouterments and wondered if they were seriously proposed. One anxious newbie asked if they were required, as she had been viewing “How to Wear a Tiara” videos on YouTube (which I didn’t know is a thing) and decided she couldn’t make the requisite bobby pins (are they still called that?) work with her short hair. I suggested she try a fascinator. She wasn’t sure whether that was a fashion tip or not. But, she said, she is fascinating, so it probably would be appropriate.

(Where she’d find one is a different matter. I don’t know where the Ladies Who Lunch (or Take High Tea) shop. And I suppose a bridal salon would be too pricey as well. I think I’d start in secondhand shops or antiques stores. I think I’ve seen one at such a shop and even tried it on, though it of course looked stupid with my glasses. But I digress for the last time this week. I promise.)

At any rate, I find the subject (cue Mr. Spock)…fascinating.

(And I hope you’re impressed by the number of parens I opened and closed in this discussion.)

-Punk, -Core, and Portmanteaus

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So you thought punk was something that had its vogue years ago and has disappeared since. Or maybe you just hope it has.

It’s true that you don’t hear much about punk music anymore, but punk is alive and well in the fictional world. As long as it’s combined with something else, that is. There is, as far as I know, no strictly punk genre of stories and books. But there are cyberpunk, steampunk, and even stonepunk and solarpunk.

(All of these are “portmanteau words,” squished-together words or sounds that combine two meanings to create a new one. Think smog, webinar, bromance, brunch, or spork (which I still call a runcible spoon). Or, given the time of year, spooktacular. But I digress.)

These varieties of fiction share the sensibilities of punk such as rebellion, individualism, social inequality, and unconventional thinking. (Less screaming, feedback, and safety pin piercings, though. Thank goodness.)

Most people’s introduction to the hyphenpunk world was a 1984 (appropriately) science fiction novel, Neuromancer, by William Gibson. It presented a dark, gritty, dystopian society in which a killer AI invaded people’s brains. At the time it served as a warning, which apparently we have not heeded. (Since then, almost all -punk fiction has been sci-fi or fantasy. At least I haven’t seen any romancepunk or mysterypunk. Again, thank goodness. But I digress again.)

Cyberpunk didn’t start any fashion trends the way punk music did (using the word “fashion” loosely). But another iteration of -punk has: steampunk. Steampunk combines Victorian-era technology and problems with a sense of adventure and invention and owes a lot to the writing of Jules Verne. You’ll find air battles between pirates in blimps, steam-powered robots pieced together from spare parts, and plots involving gaslighting (the streetlamp kind, not the manipulative kind). It’s a celebration of innovation, progress, and developing technology combined with nostalgia for a time when science was exciting, not threatening, and possibilities for advancement seemed limitless. Steampunk, unlike cyberpunk, is uplifting.

Nowadays, you can see steampunk aficionados at clubs and sci-fi conventions dressing in Victorian garb, embellished with brass gears, gauges, and wheels. One trendy accessory is the top hat with welding goggles as a hatband. Women can dress as aviators (aviatrixes? aviatrices?) with, obviously, aviator goggles. One would assume that the expected reaction from those not in the know is goggling at them. (Sorry, not sorry.)

(And that stonepunk and solarpunk I mentioned? Those refer to fiction that immerses the reader in a Flintstones-like past and a back-to-the-land agrarian setting respectively, with technology based on those eras. But I digress still more.)

Now on to -core, another element used in portmanteau words related to the music scene, rather than fiction. As you might guess, the word “hardcore” is the origin of the term. But instead of referring to pornography, -core applies to an extreme expression of any kind of music. Skacore. Thrashcore. Even emocore, unlikely as that sounds. (Theoretically, you could have punkcore music, but I’ve never heard that term used. Nor punkpunk fiction, for that matter. There is a subset of country music called cowpunk, so I guess you could have cowpunkcore. But I digress even more.)

Historical note: Lewis Carroll, author of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass pioneered the creation of portmanteau words. (A portmanteau is “a case or bag to carry clothing in while traveling, especially a leather trunk or suitcase that opens into two halves.” So portmanteau, when it comes to words, is actually a metaphor.) Carroll’s epic poem “Jabberwocky” contained several. Slithy (as in “the slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe”) is, he said, a combination of lithe and slimy; frumious, a mashing-together of furious and fuming; and chortle, a portmanteau of chuckle and snort that is still used today.

(Less historical note: Thanks to the book The Annotated Alice (annotations by Martin Gardner), which I highly recommend, I learned how to recite the first verse of “Jabberwocky” in French, a skill with no practical applications whatsoever. But I digress. My last digression for this post. I promise.)

(Just kidding. Bonus digression. Back to -punk and -core. There exists a series of books that combines steampunk, thriller, and fantasy. (A Study in Silks (The Baskerville Affair)). Steampunk-Holmes-demoncore, I guess you’d call it.)

Romancing the Body

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Romance novels have changed since I used to read them. (Yes, I am here publically admitting that I did once read what I called “tempestuous” novels because the cover blurbs always started, “The tempestuous saga of an innocent young woman and the pirate she couldn’t live without.” Hey, I was 16. But I digress.)

The covers of the novels, which were also called “bodice-rippers” back then, usually featured a picture of a man and a woman, with him ripping open her bodice (duh). The man always looked like the king of book covers, Fabio (a famous cover model) or a fair imitation, with lovely flowing locks, a square chin, an intent gaze, and an irresistible (apparently) sneer. The woman was slim, beautiful, and wearing a dress with a bodice (again, duh). She could be soft and yielding or, more often, fiery and tempestuous. If you knew about such things, you could sometimes guess the era in which the tempest played out by the details of the clothing, but usually not. An open, puffy-sleeved shirt and a ripped bodice don’t really convey that much information.

The point is, the cover art generally featured two figures, a man and a woman, with some indication of conflict and/or passion between them.

Not anymore.

I’ve noticed that these days, romance novels tend to have cover art that features a man only.

And not just any sort of man. He will have the physique of a bodybuilder, a hairless chest, no shirt (or one that exposes the entire torso), tight jeans, and not much else. He could be a bodybuilder or a cowboy or a firefighter or a musician or (I suppose) a beach bum, or even, since Fifty Shades, a business tycoon on his day off.

But he has no face.

Where a face should be, there is a shadow or a hat. Or the picture is simply cropped so that the cover doesn’t involve even a hint of a face.

What does this say about women and the men they are attracted to?

In sexual politics, there is a thing called “the male gaze.” It refers to how television and movies and advertising and just about everything else present females that will be pleasing to a man who is looking at them. How women react to the images doesn’t matter. (This can also be called “heteronormative,” but you didn’t come here for a sociology lesson.) The “male gaze” reinforces the idea that stereotypical males value women only for what’s between their neck and their navel, as the saying goes. (Or their neck and their knees, to be more accurate.)

Now, on the covers of romance novels, we have images that are meant to appeal to the female gaze. And what do they show? Besides torsos, I mean?

They show that publishers – or at least their marketing departments – are trying to appeal to the “female gaze.” And they think that gaze rests on the same areas as men’s gazes – neck to knees. To appeal to the romance reader, they think, men should be manscaped and body-sculpted, physical as all get-out. And anonymous.

It may be true that some women do long for anonymous sex these days and that romance novels increasingly sell sex. And it may be that the female gaze is as superficial and body-conscious as the male gaze. Maybe that’s the way it is for women who read romance novels. Maybe the publishers know their audience.

As for me, the things I look for in a man are all above the neck – bright, witty, creative men with facial hair. (In fact, three of those qualities are not just above the neck, but above the eyebrows. And I’ll disregard a guy’s lack of facial hair if the other three qualities are strong. But I digress again.)

That’s what’s romantic as far as I’m concerned. And sexy. But I suppose it doesn’t sell books.

The Ultimate Fashionista – Not Me!

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I guess you’d call me a victim of fashion. Or actually, a victim of no fashion. No fashion sense, at least. Fashion nonsensical, maybe.

I’ve always been this way. Being the second child, I always had hand-me-downs, which is probably why I never learned to pick out my own clothes. Also, my mother chose my clothes, which I was okay with until junior high, when I was mortified to see myself on videotape wearing saddle shoes and anklet socks. Quel faux pas!

It was at about that time that people started taking me in hand and trying to fix me up, sartorially at least. (Apparently, the other kind of fixing up was not even an option until I was properly decked out.) My first fashion consultant was a friend who told me that the main thing I should invest in was a pleated plaid skirt with a large gold safety pin. I did not, and thereby missed my chance to be stylish.

When I did develop my own sense of style, it was based entirely around Banana Republic. Khaki and olive drab were my color palette. I lived for the day each month when the new catalog came out with all its exotic descriptions of the clothes and tidbits of travel writing.

Only once did I ever shop in an actual Banana Republic store, in La Jolla. I hyperventilated, which is something I ordinarily do only when shopping for amber jewelry. I made several purchases and used the leopard print wrapping paper as a background on my bulletin board at work. (A co-worker once brought me an empty Banana Republic bag as a gift. “Won’t she be offended?” someone asked her. “She’ll love it,” Marie replied.  And I did. But I digress.)

Later I learned that Banana Republic had an outlet store about 45 miles from my house. Of course, I had to go. This was before outlet malls became a Thing. The BR outlet was in Erlanger, KY, a few miles from the Cincinnati airport (which is in Kentucky, for some reason). Keeping with either the travel theme or the airport theme, the outlet store was housed in a large, hangar-like warehouse, where I could make a proper expedition of shopping. I was crushed when BR stopped publishing their catalogs and again when they were bought out by The Gap. The outlet store was just no fun anymore.

Still, I wore my khaki and O.D., with occasional accents of camouflage. (This was also before camo became a Thing for anyone other than soldiers and hunters.) My mother, perhaps in atonement for all the hand-me-downs, sewed me spiffy camo vests and scarves. Once she even found some camo flannel and made me a floor-length granny-style camo nightgown, which I adored. (She also made me a forest green cape and Robin Hood hat, which I wore to my college archery classes. But I digress again.)

Another friend took me in hand and tried to eliminate the jungle look from my wardrobe. She introduced me to colors outside the neutral spectrum and accompanied me on shopping trips where she picked out my clothes and dressed me up like a Barbie doll. Well, not like a Barbie, really. I didn’t have the figure for it and my feet aren’t permanently shaped for heels. At least I looked respectable enough for work and dressy enough for social occasions, which for some reason I hardly ever got invited to. When she was no longer able to go shopping with me, she thoughtfully kept me supplied with more hand-me-downs from her own extensive and colorful wardrobe.

Gradually, I developed enough color sense to boss my husband around. (“Let me try on the teal jacket. No, the teal jacket! Not the navy blue! Lady, can you show him which is the teal jacket?” “Of course I can’t wear the knit sweater that I wore to the last business meeting! It’s long-sleeved and it’s August. Oh, and it’s not white; it’s cream. Which goes nicely with the coffee stain on it.”)

Now, of course, I’ve abandoned all attempts at fashion. I work at home in my pajamas and keep a year-round wardrobe of nightwear ranging from sleep shorts to men’s flannel pajamas. I buy them on sale out of season. This nabs me cutesy designs (“Feline Sleepy” “It’s Meow or Never”) and nightshirts that look like hospital johnnies. But no one except my husband sees me anyway, so it hardly matters.

And if I do have to go outside, I’ve developed my own special signature collection of clothing in my own style. I call it “Retro Boho Hobo,” and it suits me fine.

Fall In!

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One time I was interviewed on TV. My husband and I were at the Arboretum, chilling and talking to another nature-lover. A disgusted-looking reporter approached us and said that he was doing a segment on the first day of fall. (No doubt that was why he looked disgusted.) He asked us about our thoughts regarding fall. The nature-lover gave the standard answer about the color of fall leaves.

Dan and I were not so predictable. He said fall made him sad because he couldn’t plant flowers anymore. I said that I always thought of September as the first month of school and that I had mixed feelings because I was no longer in education. The reporter looked even more disgusted, packed up, and went away. When we watched the news, we discovered that we were the only people he interviewed.

(The next day I told my boss that I had been on TV. “The bank robbery?” he said. He had a dry sense of humor, which I loved. But I digress.)

I actually do have mixed feelings about fall, in addition to the education thing. The fall colors are beautiful, though they’re really only impressive when weather conditions during the summer are perfect. And this year, they were far from perfect.

Then there’s Halloween. I’ve written before about how much I dislike it (https://butidigress.blog/2019/10/27/halloween-bah-humbug/). For those of you who want the Reader’s Digest Condensed version, I hate handing out candy. There’s the lack of trick-or-treaters in our neighborhood, the amount of leftover candy we have as a consequence, and the door-darting cat. There are also the Halloween episodes of nearly every TV show, although they’re not as annoying as the Christmas episodes of every show. There’s no Halloween music except for “Monster Mash,” which gets played ad nauseum. This year, I plan to hide in the bedroom at the back of the house with the lights off (including the porch light) and read by the light of my e-reader.

One thing I do love about the fall is pumpkin and specifically pumpkin pie spice. I’m not one of those who hates on pumpkin pie spice lattes and similar inventions. I seldom drink coffee, so I’m not usually around those. No, what I love are the actual spices – cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and ginger. I love the smell of them. I love the taste of them. I love them so much that I’m often disappointed by the small amount of them that most people use in their pumpkin pie. We’ve tried to make our own. This year I’m even going to look up a recipe.

(I saw a recipe online for two-ingredient pumpkin muffins – spice cake mix and canned pumpkin. Of course, I’d have to bump up the spices. I always do when I make my own spice cake. But I digress again.)

Another thing I love about fall is the clothing. Sweaters. I have a large collection of sweaters, including those knee-length cardigans that are probably out of style now, not that I care. I also have a number of sweatshirts and cozy lap blankets. Flannel pajamas, too. I love wrapping up in them. It’s like a fabric hug.

I can’t say I love the Peanuts special It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, but I usually watch it just for the line about never discussing politics, religion, or the Great Pumpkin. I do, however, love the pumpkins Calvin carves in the Calvin & Hobbes comic strip. And the Wallace and Grommit animated movie Curse of the Were-Rabbit. And Young Frankenstein. I can even take it when Dan binge-watches The Addams Family.

Of course, when it comes to things I really like about autumn, I recently saw a sweatshirt that says, “My favorite season is the fall of the patriarchy.” I may just have to get that.

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A Tattoo? At My Age?

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Recently I read a question online from a man who was asking whether he was too old to get a tattoo – at age 40! Every comment I saw reassured him that he wasn’t too old at all. (And that it both costs less and hurts less than he had imagined.)

I found this discussion particularly interesting because my husband and I both waited until we were over 60 to get tattoos. I started getting mine (I have three) approximately seven years ago. Dan got his first one just this month. My tattoos are two punctuation tattoos that are linked to mental health issues and one that represents my lifelong love of books. Dan’s is a bear paw, which represents his “spirit guide.”

(I know that non-native people who say they have spirit guides is problematic, as they are part of Native Americans’ spiritual beliefs and religious practices, which shouldn’t be appropriated by outsiders. I discussed this with my husband, and he said that he considers the bear his spirit guide because of a dream he had in which a bear literally led him out of danger. But I digress.)

Both of us are considering at least one more tattoo – a peace sign with doves for him and a compass rose or a yellow rose for me. Tattoos are sort of addictive. I never expected to get another tattoo after my first one, but here I am.

I’ve heard various theories about why people get tattoos. Some say it’s a form of self-mutilation that flouts God’s law of respect for the human body. Some see it as one point in a spectrum of “body modifications” that include piercings and whatever those things that stretch earlobes are called. Others say tattooing is a practice that indicates membership in a “tribe” – bikers or chefs, for instance. Still others see tattoos as a sign of rebellion – a statement of defiance against social mores. (This claim is particularly often voiced when the tattoo-ee is a young person.) Then there are those who believe that a tattoo is an outward sign of an interior belief – love for God or for one’s mother, for example.

What’s the motivation for me? Aside from the punctuation tattoos, which have a specific meaning related to mental health, I consider my book tattoo purely decorative (although I guess it also proclaims my membership in the tribe of bibliophiles and writers). Dan’s is more of the interior-belief sort, a reminder of an experience that was deeply meaningful to him.

Some people scoff at tattoos because of aging. They say that tattoos acquired in the heedlessness of youth will be regretted when the skin becomes distorted by age, and elastic and crepey skin. But I don’t mind. The aging of my skin is a fact of life, one that I am not fighting off with expensive creams and lotions. That the tattoos will change too is a given. Neither of these facts is something to be mourned, however, at least not by me. In fact, the reality of change is a part of every life and I would be foolish to think it wouldn’t affect my skin art. Since I got my tattoos late in life, that also means that they have less time to fade than ones acquired at a younger age would.

But so what if my tattoos age? My stack of books will crinkle like the pages of an old book. That’s appropriate. And not enough reason not to get tattoos.

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