Can somebody please explain how makeup works?

So I am on this rant about shoes. Specifically Keens. My favorite shoes. I loved these shoes. They were comfy and had this ridiculously round toe box and came in different color combinations. I really loved them. Now? Still comfy, but the things that made them different and interesting? Gone. The goofy round toe, the funky colors, gone. Just another expensive, boring walking shoe. So I sent them an email! All passionate and disappointed and misty-eyed. Bring Back Keens!! BRING BACK KEENS!! And don’t get me started about Subaru. If you see an old Subaru, you can tell what it is a mile away. I love the old Subaru!! I love the big grey stripe at the bottom of every one! Now, It looks like a Toyota. Volkswagen? Toyota. Mercedes? Jaguar? Toyota, Toyota. Rolls Royce? Big Toyota. What the hell?!??? What higher power decided that Same=Good? That’s right! I’m pissed off and spoiling for a fight. I’m standing up for what I believe! For all the voiceless people out there who want their shoes and their cars the way they used to be!!!! Seriously? If I can get all “ATTICA! ATTICA!” over shoes and cars, where is that fight when it comes to myself. I am not a Toyota, my friends. I am not sleek and slim and media-approved pretty. I am a plump little VW Bug with flower decals. Maybe a squat, square little orange Kia Soul. I am drawn to those odd little cars that are so different you can spot them a mile away. I LOVE THEM. Yep, go ahead. Say it. If I can love those squat, round, goofy looking, largely inanimate objects, why can’t I spare a little affection for squat, round, goofy looking, largely inanimate me? What is it about the “thing” that I can appreciate  the beauty in its differences, but not in myself? I know I’m not alone here. Shy, lonely, too big, too small, too short, too tall, too bookish, too outgoing, too this, too that, too different.  We dye our hair blue. We pierce things. We get a tattoo or 10; we wear our jeans down under our boxers. We wear two different shoes. We figure if we are purposely different enough, no one will see the shy. The scared. The different. The not enough. Let people laugh at our hair, our shoes, our clothes, our cars. Just please…don’t laugh at us. We all appreciate the different. Sometimes we eye it longingly.  It’s so unusual. But… In the end, better to wear the same thing our friends are wearing. Drive the same car. Sport the same hairstyle and totter on the same shoes. Lose weight, or plump our lips. Remove this and fill that, so we are the acceptable form of “beautiful”. Sometimes, the things we want more than anything, are the things we are told we want. And eventually, so many of us will be dyeing our hair and piercing our tongues and wearing our dad’s army boots, that we will all start looking the same. Same does not equal Good. Same doesn’t necessarily equal Bad. Same equals Same.

 Patchwork Quilts; The Freak Flag Series
carynjune