Revelation day
I revealed to work that I’m pregnant - ahead of the 12-week mark, so I will immediately miscarrying (oh wait, Nothing Bad Has Happened Yet). It was time, both in belly-size and because my boss was in town.
I also have started a new blog. I’ve been facing a few online identity issues for a while now: Clearly I don’t want this blog, nor the Diary-X archives I have never successfully imported due to their insane size, to be proof that I have blogged, if sort of quietly in my own corner. And yet if I have to sit through one more “seminar” on “developing your unique voice on a blog” I am going to puke. I freely admit that I often run this more like a diary than a blog, but I do learn.
Also a few of you may have noticed, if you comment in communities I frequent, that I keep alternating my real/pro identity with mine here and hey! Adding a third option is a great way to keep everything confused!
And my true pro blog is not always mine to control or play with in a way I would like, not to mention I am only allowed to put two hours of maintenance of it a week on my timesheet. And I kind of wanted a more topic-focused blog in some ways - ok, an actual mommy-blog.
The true kicker too was finding Viking Dad and it looked like fun. So I’ve started a weird blog over here as WarriorQueenMom and a Twitter account and I’m going to play there, and you are all most welcome to join me there, or not, whatever you like. I’ll still be posting here. And I’m still “developing my unique voice” there (not yet as playful as I’d like, but then I’m not always as playful as I like) and it may not be successful. But, you know, I wanted you all to know.
Plus, I’m getting an absolutely irrational amount of joy and fun out of continually logging into WarriorQueenMom. It’s my own little multiple thing! Cleverly disguised as moderately clever! *cough* (You have to be me I think.)
And no, it’s not a money-making venture. It is a bit of a branding venture in that I plan to eventually use it as social media cred if I need to.
If you think these two topics are related, they kind of are, because I fear my work will restructure my position while I’m gone and I’ll need to be on the market.
BTW I am pitching a story about ‘net evolution and the Facebook thing if anyone wants to share their identity online woes with me.
Reluctant beauty editor
I think I’ve concluded that I’m going to talk about my work a little bit even if it Dooces me ultimately. I don’t want it to ’cause I really am learning and largely enjoying my job; it was absolutely the right choice for me. But it’s such a big part of my life right now that being very prudent is not working for me. And I don’t love it that much that I am content to continue to post inane things for the next 5 years. So here goes on the new balance attempt.
I lost my assistant due to a combination of her resigning for a better position and a seizure of the opportunity to attempt to balance the budget. I had been passing a lot of the fashion and beauty (F&B) stuff to her for two reasons:
1. She was really into that stuff and had experience with it and so she loved it and was good at it. She also enjoyed the goodies you have to try out in order to understand them. (Swag, but purposeful swag - a sample of a face mask not so that you will be bribed but so you know how it feels, smells, etc.)
2. I have been a nerdy/geeky type all my life and was raised largely in my parents’ hippy phase. In grade school this meant wearing 5-year-old hand-me-downs (bell bottoms long past when they were out) and the inevitable blue eyeshadow disasters and being picked on daily. In grade 6 the class had a full afternoon meeting without me to discuss why they should not be holding me down in the bathroom and flushing my underwear down the toilet. (Yah. Sigh.)
3. In adolescence I pretty much missed a lot of the “girl knowledge” that you’re supposed to get. Partly this was due to having taken on the “uncool and don’t care” identity (more on this in a later post). Partly this was due to living way more in my head than in my body. And I went to a school where this was okay. I did learn some things at camp (like don’t shave your goosebumps off :)). But generally I would put my makeup & fashion knowledge at about a C-. I could scrape by, and look okay for meetings and things, but no one would mistake me for being on trend or well made up. (My mother did not help. Not sure why.)
4. I also am pretty cheap about these things. The idea of spending money on makeup and even clothing over say books, music, plants for the garden, pillows for the bedroom and travel, is not happy-making.
Oddly enough, though, when we went through that initial round of multiplicity and therapy and coming out to ourselves, ‘my’ (the system’s) work on appearance took a pretty big leap forward. To reconstruct it I think what happened was that in everyone’s drive to self-define on the outside and in our body, we had a kind of energy to go out and learn new stuff.
Like that you can get your eyebrows (and other facial hair, if you have some, like I do) waxed. And while you’re doing that, if you do it at the right place, you can also get to “try the new colours” which is also a makeup application lesson. And in fact you can get free makeup lessons whenever you like if you’re willing to sit through a sales pitch.
And then you can read fashion magazines too. This last was a stretch for me because I had spent so much time defining myself as someone who doesn’t read fashion magazines. But in fact, they are not pure evil. (Another post on this later too.)
Anyways, I learned enough to pass as a lay person, which got me through the interview and into my job and provided a base for managing my site’s F&B area. But my method of managing it has largely been delegation up until now.
And now I have no one to delegate to.
I’m lucky in that I have spent time developing relationships with people around me on my print team and in general so that I have people to consult. And I have been paying attention, so I know way more than I did 2 years ago.
But now I have to do more of this piece that I had outsourced which is going to beauty & fashion events (we could call them “information sourcing sessions” although they are presented as more fun, but they are work). And then, of course, turning those into useful and credible information. Ha ha.
Today I am talking about events and my attempt at Zen.
Events mean sitting in a room with a bunch of really knowledgeable people who all look great and know which products to use for every occasion, flaw, and moment, and trying to learn this stuff.
And lest you think this stuff is simple, it is not.
I will save the debate on whether it is shallow in life meaning. But it is not simple. You need to understand a good slice of biology and chemistry on a pragmatic level to even start to understand what they are talking about and whether it’s marketing-speak or something interesting going on, and whether something’s appropriate for whatever kind of face you are talking about.
On top of that you need to understand the evolution of products and the names of the designers and manufacturers and owners and celebrities and which products are high and low end and and and. And then on top of that you have to understand the trends, which change 3-4 times a year, and how this relates to fashion.
And then there are other considerations like representing everyone fairly.
So there’s just a certain amount of complexity inherent in the process. But on top of that I continually walk into these things and have this intense emotional reaction that…the beauty editors are going to drag me into the bathroom and flush my pants down the toilet. Y’know?
I feel like an imposter.
And that particular role is especially hard for me, Formerly Gifted Child(tm) in that I have relied in the past on my information. Like I might not be the coolest kid on the block, but at least I can tell you how to get to the bus stop. But you can’t read for a few weeks and be up on all this stuff. I am learning, but my lack of native interest and years of lack of interest shines through loud and clear.
No, I don’t remember the year that nail polish shade was impossible to find and does that compare to this year’s Chanel rush. (Let’s be honest: I had no idea there could ever be rushes on colours of nail polish, unless you mean “the last non-garish colour in the 99 cent discount bin at the drugstore.”)
I have at least learned not to fake it. If you don’t know, you don’t know. Better to say so and let someone explain it to you than be standing there pretending that you have a clue only to be caught out eventually. The fact is that my ignorance may even be an editorial advantage for a certain kind of reader who — like me — doesn’t know all this stuff.
But that doesn’t prevent me from feeling this shaft of vulnerability and upset every time I have to deal with this entire world in which I am a stranger.
Anyways, here is the point of this whole post which is that yesterday I was at an event and all in knots about it inside and freaking out about my hair when I suddenly had this moment.
Of zen.
And it was that my attachment to looking good in a meeting - saving face - pride - is what has been causing my personal suffering and dread. It’s all me doing it to myself. Even if the other editors were keeping score - and I think they do a bit because it’s their job to notice, the same way I notice particular things about people - and they may even be cattily judging me (jury’s out on that one) - really that’s about them. It’s not about me.
The fact is, it’s my job to be there and learn, get the info, and curate it, and doing that for me involves a serious learning curve that will take some years to come. It is also my job to behave in a professional way.
But that’s it.
It is not my job to rewrite my past or wear the right shade of toenail polish or fit in with the cool kids (beyond being professional) or be glamourous on the red carpet. It’s truly not. My sense of failure at not doing that is just that - mine. Mine mine mine. And I can choose to let it go. Not that I won’t still feel that way, but I can allow it to be a fleeting feeling.
I feel like I’m maturing a bit. In this one area at least.