but mama... that's where the fun is
A dispatch from the female froth frontier: Snufkina and I went to Nordstrom's yesterday, so she could purchase wildly expensive foundation and I could browse muddle-headedly through a selection of odd little things that one wears on one's feet. Not shoes, no. Foot thongs. Ah, before you buttock afficionadoes get all excited, no. These thongs aren't worn anywhere near one's nether regions. They're triangles about the size of a mutant Dorito, with two loops. A little one comes off one point and goes around the middle toe, and the larger loop comes off the other two points and goes around the ankle. The fabric itself is crocheted, or covered in little beads or shells or sequins. Some horrid examples were denim with little flowers on them. Thank god I'm a country girl, etc.
Anyway. I bought two sets--a red/orange beaded pair, for modeling (what the hell) and a plain black pair, to which I plan to sew coins and cowries and all the other oddments that festoon my troupe's dance belts and jewelry. While I really wish I could dance in little shoes, now that I've discovered it's a lot easier to do spins in shoes than barefoot, that's not always appropriate. But these little foot thongs could be cute. We'll see. Just one more completely uncharacteristic thing I do for bellydance. That is, if certain intra-troupe issues are ever resolved and I ever get to perform, in front of other people, in costume.
But that is another story.
The big news from our expedition, besides the fact that I should really stay out of malls, is that I let a cosmetic-counter guy take a Polaroid of my face. The camera used some arcane technology that records not the appearance of your actual visible skin, but the layer underneath. It's supposed to show you what real sun damage you have through carelessness allowed yourself to sustain. This isn't the top layer of your skin, he said importantly, it's the skin that's coming through. The things that look like reckles are actually what people call age spots. I plunked my chin onto the chin rest and closed my eyes. Flash, a moment of waiting, and then I saw it.
Snufkina, Snukina, look! I howled, running over to where she was chatting up a stunningly beautiful African-American clerk in vintage '70's dress and septum pierce, I'm damaged! Look, I'm going to be all spotty!
You're not damaged, she tried to reassure me.
No, no, look! I have to start wearing sunscreen! I'm completely damaged! It may be too late!
Rotten to the core, maybe, she said kindly. But not damaged.
Huh. Well, I calmed down enough to stop myself from purchasing the whole 125-clam Radiant regime right there on the spot; I took some promotional literature and my ghostly Polaroid and we got our sun-damaged asses out of there. But once on the street, I couldn't quiet myself down. I should note here that Snukina is much fairer than I, yet apparently unconcerned that she is about to turn into a monster-movie extra. Maybe it's because she's a young squirt, compared to my leathery old self. She thought it was amusing that I spent the rest of the day, as we walked around downtown, holding my shopping bag of beaded foot thongs over my face.
I nearly didn't go out this morning. I woke up at AX's, where there is no sunblock, and went home (ditto) for a while to the Spaceship, sticking to the shaded side of the street. Finally I made it to my disaster area of a studio, where a little rooting produced the 45 SPF stuff I bought last year for Burning Man. Ah, safe to brave the outdoors once again!
