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A Magazine, A Mascara, and Good Hair Goop
May 1, 2010
I allow planned days off from school gladly. Friends are amazed that I am teaching them to hide from their problems and be lazy. I don’t want them to live in a world of time clocks, me vs. The Boss, of their achievement schedule being decided by someone other than them. If their work is done at the end of the week, let them be innovative and self-determined about where and how. If they can achieve in their sleep, or on an island, they’ve won.
Read moreThis Week in Macleans March 29 2010: Forced To Get Real
March 22, 2010
Macleans articles are fair and multi-faceted. I can get a handle on the larger topic by reading 4 pages. I understand the history and the arguments, and not sound like an idiot when the subject comes up. This topic will not be going away and the sooner I get it, the sooner my family’s health and sustainability will improve.
Read moreThis Month In Elle Canada March 2010 : Is Minimalism Sexy?
March 13, 2010
Mr. Livingstone’s subtitle refers to the quiet celebration of minimalism’s return. I’m pretty sure he speaks for the crowd.
Read moreFitness Magazine July/August 2009: A Keeper
August 6, 2009
The best thing about this magazine is that it feels like it’s for the real world. It doesn’t harp on the weight loss, I-got-to-a-size-6, thing as much as the health and strength benefits. This is not an anatomy lesson or a journey beyond your outer limits. It is intended to be practical and motivating.
Read moreMidlife Re-Invention (There Is No Crisis)
April 12, 2009
I’m a doctor who wants to own a makeup and color company. I’m a sucker for every transition success story ever told.
More Canada April 2009 is about Joyful Re-invention (click on the magazine cover pic to see a list of contents). It was about finding ways to make change a happy thing. One brilliant woman left her job in Vancouver, moved to Paris to give guided tours to women tourists of the city she loved. Everyone tried to talk her out of it, of course. She’s swamped, of course. These business ideas are no-brainers. Every city needs this. The whole province of PEI needs it.
Also a good piece on why women tend to be very successful in our second careers, risk-averse that we are (or maybe because of it). And a good article on how the cost of buying mangoes and avocadoes in Canada in December will become out of reach as the cost of transportation and efforts to reduce emissions skyrocket, meaning we need to think of ways to cook rhubarb and beets. The Canadian Model Search Winners seem to be beautiful women in shoes that don’t feel good.
Welcome the midlife change
We all feel a ground tremor right about now. It could be the best thing that’s ever happened. It prevents the next 40 from being just more of the last 40. Some impatience and craziness is natural. It’s the energy for the change. The fact that we can even HAVE a re-invention, let alone a crisis, is a step forward. We have the possibility to live differently.
Maybe the crisis is pointing you in a bad direction, making you do things you know you shouldn’t. Yes, we all have a right to be happy, but sometimes these actions aren’t going to get you anywhere better. It may look better but listen to your gut telling you it’s going to be a pit of snakes. Listen if all your friends tell you it’s a pit of snakes. If you think you’re coming unhinged, get some solid counseling. If nothing anyone says registers anymore, speak to someone other than well-meaning friends.
The truth about the bad
Having an affair is the cliché of this lifestage. We have all seen romance give way to practicality, to a business relationship. How could it be anything else with 2 jobs, 3 loans, 3 kids, 4 parents, not enough sleep, and a body that hurts more than it used to? The idea of keeping love alive is fine but that doesn’t mean it exists just the way it did 20 years or even 2 years ago.
Nobody has a better marriage, healthier bank account, or smarter children. They may look like they do. If they say they do, they’re lying. They’re expending a lot of energy and cash to maintain the façade. They probably look at you and think of all the things you have that they don’t. Everyone with children, of almost any age, is walking on the edge for 20 years. Unmarried people can’t possibly get it. They’re just exercising the reckless courage of the non-combattant.
Have sensible expectations and remember that nothing stays the same. Romance will be lost from a marriage in the years with young kids. The exhaustion is nauseating. Thursday Date Night becomes Thursday Fight Night. It’s temporary. Just get through the day.
Remember that you’re not doing this alone. Your feelings may be so strong that you think no else has them. It is normal and common to despise your spouse and visualize his death. It is normal and common to dream of having an apartment of your own where nobody bugs you. It is normal and common to believe that you’d be happy to never ever have sex again. Nobody is willing to come out and say it but as soon as someone does, everyone has a story. It is also temporary. Wait it out.
Reframe the picture
Aging is the best thing that’s ever happened to me – but I recognize not everyone feels that way. I’m tired a lot, in Doctor’s offices every 3 months, have lines on my face and age spots, and I could care less. The thing I look forward to most on Friday night is getting into my bed at 8. If all that stuff is the admission ticket to where I’m going, I’ll pay it twice.
You can choose to dwell on the many wonders of youth, but to say it was ALL good would be untrue. The older folks like to remind us that “things were better 50 years ago”. Pffft. Who would go back there, especially as a woman? To a 50 year old, a 25 year old is still a kid, with all the limitations of kids.
If your age causes you to suspect that you’re less than you once were, others will feel the same way. Will you create the very thing you fear? Will you attract what you least want? In thinking about aging as something uninvited, in trying always to evade it, you will bring the negatives closer. Don’t dwell on what you don’t want for too long because next thing you know, you’ll be living it.
The hurricane in your head
Believe in the power that’s there. Feel it physically. Let yourself change and the past not be enough. You are setting yourself free of it. That ship has sunk. Swim away. Swim towards that sunny island.
Could we learn to just be proud to be given the chance to get old? It is denied to so many. The privilege of seeing one’s children grow to adulthood should never be taken for granted. At one time, I thought my obstacles were mountains. If I could but see them clearly, I thought I could dismantle them. Today, I see that there are no mountains. There never were. The landscape is warm and abundant and the fabric is unbelievably rich.
-->I’m a doctor who wants to own a makeup and color company. I’m a sucker for every transition success story ever told.
More Canada April 2009 is about joyful re-invention. Great articles abound.
This Month In O Dec 2008 : Feed Your Right Brain
November 29, 2008
I love Oprah. Well, everyone loves Oprah.
I don’t watch the show, but then I watch no TV. I just like who she is and who she’s trying to be. I like the magazine more and more.
Those books in her book club… The fiction plots are suicidally dark. The spiritual guides seem completely without grounding, just floating around in the ether, holding on to nothing. I’ve tried wearing my tin foil hat, the one with the receivers at the ends of the antennae, but I still can’t get these Buddha-Lite books. Still, any woman with such awareness of her journey will find answers. She’s just following another of the many paths.
Right Brain matters
In this issue, Oprah is interviewing the author of the book I’m presently reading. It’s a book everyone should read if they want to be future-adapted. The book is Daniel Pink’s A Whole New Mind : Why Right Brainers Will Rule The Future.
Do many of us still belong to a generation that encourages our kids to be accountants, engineers, computer experts instead of cooks and bedsheet designers? I’d have to count myself in. I’m wrong and doing them harm with my 50 year old advice. Why encourage them to do jobs that machines and Asians already do faster and cheaper and that might not even exist on this continent in 15 years?
What cannot be done by anyone else, here or in Mumbai, is to add the particular stamp of creativity that is uniquely ours. It might be found in the design of the lipstick case, in the emotionally beautiful story that goes with the coat giving it meaning beyond all others, or in the story behind the computer game that gives it value beyond all others.
Right Brain practice
For those of us who are primarily Left Brainers, hope isn’t lost. To succeed in every sense of the word, we first will have to redefine “succeed”. Second, we’re going to have to learn to add some R Brain inputs to our usual L Brain output. In the book, Pink gives us six senses we can develop to get our R Brain cooking.
Every skillset is partially in the gene but can be learned and developed. If you’re not sure where opening up your R brain begins, have a look at Betty Edwards’ most fantastic books, Drawing On The Right Side Of The Brain and Drawing On The Artist Within. See what you can learn to see in a week. These are not books about changing how you draw, they’re about changing how you see, in a very literal sense. Begin with Drawing On The Right Side Of The Brain, the first book. Give yourself 7 days and nothing in your world will ever look the same to you unless you’re already an artist.
The basis of it all is that we’ve reached a point of guaranteed physical comfort. We now have the freedom to think more about what it all means. A candle isn’t light and heat anymore, it’s tranquility and uplifting fragrance. Our homes can’t hold our harvest of stuff. The pendulum is swinging away from accumulation for its own sake to owning less but having it symbolize more.
This has great implications all round. At last, we’re getting beyond what things look like. Hopefully, we’ll make the same progress where bodies and faces are concerned. Pink says that he predicts baby boomers are going to do something astonishing. There are so many of them, together with we stragglers, that our combined mental energies will find a way to give our lives reason and worth.
The new News
Every issue brings stories of how women are being empowered to look after themselves and their families, this time with making bracelets. The article on how women brought peace to Liberia, and the movie of the excellent name (Pray The Devil Back To Hell), also raises my head a little higher for all women.
I feel good reading Oprah when I see how humans are helping humans. A surgeon and his all-woman team travel to politically dangerous Zimbabwe to correct cleft lip/palate facial deformity in children. THIS is what should be on CNN every night. It makes you feel good for the right reasons. O is becoming the magazine for the News I want to know, not the horrors they force-feed us.
Does accepting stress help control it?
What I try to come away with and hold on to is the sense of not resisting everything all the time. So the tire was flat, the bank machine ate the card, you weigh 5 lbs more than you want, the window broke, you missed lunch. Why storm and rage? Why not accept and cope? I strive to be one of those people who is inwardly very calm, as Oprah seems to be. The outside may be busy but the center is still. (Those of you who know me can stop laughing. It’s mean and I really am trying.)
In the article on dealing with holiday pressure, and as we know already, it discusses powerlessness as the most destructive type of stress. I don’t know if it’s better to fight and resist all the time or accept. Is accepting a type of resignation and a sign that hope has been lost? The nurses on the surgical team in Zimbabwe notice that the Africans are more accepting of what life brings. Is resisting vs. accepting just a cultural difference or a symbol of our indefatigable belief that things CAN be made better? There were many connected ideas in this issue.
Music and family
With Oprah, Sissy Spacek, and Suze Orman wearing metallic gold, I was glad to see that they didn’t dress Dan Pink that way. Or Dr. Phil for that matter though a Yuletide tie might have been a festive touch.
Fascinating piece by neurologist Oliver Sacks on music’s ability to break through many forms of dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease. The comprehension of music penetrates and outlives what the disease has done to the brain tissue. Sometimes, this ability that music has to shine through the darkness even persists for long periods after the music was heard. Why is this not in commonplace use, I wonder? A short article but I found it rather amazing.
The best, best line in the whole magazine is where Oprah says “ I don’t know what I love more, my bathtub or my bed”. Why, I think we might be long-lost sisters (or it just proves that all women are long-lost sisters).
Our first outing together after our reunion really should be to go shopping. We’d go to Target and Mark’s Work Wearhouse. We’d discuss the fact that if someone spends $50 on me, I’d really rather not get a bookmark no matter how pretty and functional it is (from the gift suggestion articles). And the ball of 100 hair elastics for my kids… into the vacuum and the cat, one by one, after they’d thrown it at each other a few times.
-->In this issue, Oprah is interviewing the author of the book I’m presently reading. It’s a book everyone should read if they want to be future-adapted. The book is Daniel Pink’s A Whole New Mind : Why Right Brainers Will Rule The Future.
Do many of us still belong to a generation that encourages our kids to be accountants, engineers, computer experts instead of cooks and bedsheet designers? I’d have to count myself in. I’m wrong and doing them harm with my 50 year old advice.
This Month In Elle Canada November 2008 : Read Every Article
October 16, 2008
Thursday! Do you feel like this?
or this?
No need to write in. I can guess.
I bought a subscription to Elle Canada because it cost $6/year with a coupon in a Clinique bonus. It targets a much younger audience and I usually don’t relate. I was off to a better than usual start with this one, with the Editor’s letter. The rest of the issue was just as good.
But before that, on page 21, what DID they do to Nicole Kidman’s lips in the Omega ad?? I hope they’ve been Shopped, not shot up. That girl can look stunning or sick. If she could just leave her hair red and wavy, she’d go a long way.
Editor-in-chief, Rita Silvan, who has very good hair that I especially covet if the curl is her own, writes about fashion’s ridiculously high heels. She describes Julianne Moore, reduced to a teetering tottering woman who could barely make it to the stage to present an award. At that moment, even Julianne Moore made herself ridiculous. Did anyone hear a word she said once she finally conquered the stairs?
Heels that give little lift without losing solid grounding are great. Beyond that, when your walk is shaky, when your knees are oddly bent, when your concentration is on staying upright and alive, when you’re better off sitting politely than getting up and going somewhere, then fashion has made a woman its victim.
So Rita and I agree. When women allow themselves to be diminished by an industry’s fabrication and propaganda about how we should look, just so that industry can continue making money, I get prickly. And when we allow ourselves to be in pain (because stilettos hurt like..) , then we’re even bigger victims.
Natural Resources, on page 40, shows a selection of absolutely beautiful neutral makeup for a tone-on-tone look. The lipsticks are especially appealing. Laura Mercier Aurora will be worth a look; on the Mercier site, I noticed Caramel which I liked even better.
On page 176, Rose is the Beauty News Trend Of The Month. It counterbalances the neutral-to-warm-tones page above with some equally wonderful makeup for pink undertones. Here’s the face ; click the arrows to see the makeup.
Beautiful coats, jackets, boots, very clean lines – a lot of shopping done for you here. The entire issue outdoes itself in coats, bags, and price ranges.
Anne Hathaway, made up to look more interesting than I’ve ever seen her, makes a point about not deciding what you want others to like about you. I’d never really thought about it in that way before. Do we decide “I am funny” or “I am nurturing” or “I am clever” and then work it till it overshadows our other traits? More I think of it, more she might have a point.
The Beckhams have a new his/hers scent. What do these two discuss at the supper table, do you think? The media would have us believe that they do nothing but get photographed and have enviably successful sex by any standard.
I read every horoscope except my own, to prove that they’re interchangeable. You know, my own (Libra) really was the best match, almost the only match.
25 Beauty Steals… I’m always a sucker for those. There were some things I’ll look at (though less than I’d hoped).
I am all about using food as medicine. Until you’ve got that figured out, you can take all the pills you like. They’ll never work as well as when the diet is there to support them. A full page for each topic is devoted to Foods to Fight Stress, Colds, and Fatigue, as well as Antioxidant and Detox best choices.
Much more I haven’t mentioned. There was a lot of diversion packed into this $4 magazine.
On the final page, designer Michelle Lowe-Holder is interviewed. Her opinion of celebrity is most apt, particularly from someone in her line of work. You simply must visit Michelle’s favorite fashion blog at www.stylebubble.typepad.com. For this woman who looks out her windows and sees corn fields, it was time travel.
-->I bought a subscription to Elle Canada because it cost $6/year with a coupon in a Clinique bonus. It targets a much younger audience and I usually don’t relate. I was off to a better than usual start with this one, with the Editor’s letter. The rest of the issue was just as good.
Read moreThis Month In Allure October 2008 : Yes, Yes, YES!
September 28, 2008
If you have any interest in makeup, any at all, you will want to know that each October, Allure publishes their Best of Beauty issue. This is the best one ever, with Ellen Pompeo (who looks like a cross between Lindsay Lohan and Kate Hudson) on the cover.
For awhile, it seemed the same products were being recycled year after year. This year’s seems fresher, like they started at the beginning again.
Letter From The Editor
The editor-in-chief is a woman named Linda Wells. I would like this woman (though after The Devil Wears Prada, who knows?). She writes the only Letter From The Editor that I consistently read in any magazine. She seems more indulgent of the stardust and glitz than mesmerized by it.
Linda Wells
It’s never a speech promising how great the issue is going to be. She lets you work that out for yourself. It’s just about a point of view, something she thought about or noticed. Though she travels in entirely different circles, the experience is always one you can relate to. There’s no gushing or raving or taking it all too seriously. She seems more genuine than primped to the teeth.
The issues I NEVER buy
Readers Choice Awards issue are futile. The products never seem to evolve. Why is anyone still buying Great Lash mascara (unless you want a no-mascara look), or Clinique DDML (you could be getting so much more!) ? I don’t even want to talk about NARS Orgasm blush (for 80% of women, there are better choices!). The scents are never interesting, the brands names less so, with MAC and CoverGirl being far too heavily weighted.
Chatelaine did a decent Favorite Products article in the September 08 issue. I almost bought it, but in the same magazine was an article about a woman who tortured her children – here if you need to see it.
What are their editors thinking? Am I going bring something so evil, that radiates such horrible energy into my house? And have my kids see it? I remember some years ago an issue with a feature on a woman who was in love with Paul Bernardo. I can’t even bring myself to type what he was all about it, but you can Google him. I warn you, it’s not pretty. Chatelaine must have a very solid readership to print this stuff. I won’t even pick up the magazine any more.
Elegance has one master
Giorgio Armani
The source of the photo is an article in Wallpaper, for his Armani Casa furniture design store in London. The interview is interesting, but even better is the slideshow of Armani interiors. Click under the small kitchen photo to view the gallery.
Anyone who’s been to my house will fall over laughing for days to think I aspire to this. I have a long way to go. Actually, the house is too sterile, but visualize some stuff in it and it starts looking less robotic.
Allure has featured Armani’s belief in simplicity in makeup, just as in clothing, in a short article. His sense of elegance and understatement is, of course, renowned. In these, no one can take his place. I was most comforted by his statement that what he dislikes is “the exhibition of being sexy”. Thank heavens. If there’s one thought that does not cross my mind, it’s whether or not I appear sexy.
A good friend spoke with me recently about a piece on “Why Do You Want To Look Sexy?”, as a follow up to Why To You Want To Look Younger? . I sat, I thought, I read, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t find a place from which to understand the question because the sad fact is looking sexy, or feeling it, just never crosses my mind. Maybe it’s a sign of pre-menopause.
I do want to look attractive. I don’t go out without makeup. I think about my hair. I’m literally happier on my thin days. But sexy per se, why don’t I care? No idea. I’d like to know though. I need to speak with my friend and technical expert, Rick, about putting polls on this page. How many of us think about looking sexy? Always, never, sometimes?
An SJP aside
On page 186, SJP has the weirdest hair color I’ve ever seen on her. I’m pretty sure that girl is a summer, and when they make her hair the color of corn, or even worse, whatever this color is, the descriptive words escape me, pinkish-brown…, man, she just looks off. Does anyone recall when her hair was platinum (white) blond and shoulder length? I for one thought she looked amazing.
Best of the Best
But the Best-Of pages!! Stupendous. You can tell they worked at this. The choices are mostly beautiful and original. The colors are modern and elegant , though those of you who don’t wear sea-foam green eyelids may differ on that point. What can you say, they’re targeting 25 year olds. You’ll enjoy the outstanding gray eyeshadows more. The Winners lists are here, sans pictures.
Any colors from the past are only being re-hashed because they’re still the most beautiful ( and, yes, Orgasm is among them; that color will never go away, it will haunt the beauty galaxy for all time). Brands are spread over the board pretty well, with many expensive choices, but I find it forgivable and expected. That’s often where the best pigments and textures are in makeup (not so with Skin Care).
I appreciated the page devoted to Splurges, Economy, Natural, and Men’s selections.
Is it still the cosmetics industry soaking in you in hype and relieving you of your cash? Of course it is. But if you love the stuff and like to play, and are actually happy to go looking for independent opinions before you buy, throw this issue in the grocery cart. You will find the fabbiest products in lines you might never bothered getting to know. Your list of things to take a look at next time you’re out shopping is going to grow.
-->If you have any interest in makeup, any at all, you will want to know that each October, Allure publishes their Best of Beauty issue. This is the best one ever, with Ellen Pompeo (who looks like a cross between Lindsay Lohan and Kate Hudson) on the cover.For awhile, it seemed the same products were being recycled year after year. This year’s seems fresher, like they started at the beginning again.
Read moreThis Month in O, September 2008 : Great Finds, Great Advice!
August 25, 2008
September 2008′s issue of O, The Oprah Magazine is called Get Your Life Back, with features entitled Too Busy To Live and Oprah’s Cure For Feeling Overwhelmed. Now you know why I bought it. Time is the one thing I have the least of and that Oprah doesn’t have any more of than I do. And, she couldn’t buy more if she wanted to.
Those phrases capture the problem for most of us women who are trying to make some changes and figure it all out. WHEN??? Just when are we supposed to do this??
Everything in this issue was terrific. Here’s the short list :
1. Tons of beautiful things I actually would buy and could buy! Many finds under $100 . Handbags, jewelry, wine, furniture even. Fabulous stuff. I think they actually went out of their way to fit into real budgets for the millions of us who really do like Target.
2. The article about Willa Schalit, with her strong and healing presence , empowering women in Rwanda not with charity, but with fair trade. Lovely items, on sale at Macy’s or online.
3. Real life advice on real life questions (questions I actually have!), about money, relationships, speeding morning routines, and health. This is advice you could use, not read and forget. Many myths (like “Will it harm my family that so much of our food is microwaved?”) are deflated with straight up talk.
4. The Yes, You Can section, where O’s creative directore Adam Glassman styles 40-something women is really interesting. The women look real, or as close as modern magazines get. He demonstrates how we can look sexy, or arty, mix prints, and more, without looking ridiculous.
Am I the only one who hopes wide-legged pants is a fancy that will soon pass? Maybe I have an aversion because I remember “baggies” when I was in Grade 9. These look exactly the same. Everything looks good if you’re 5’10” and a size 2, but here’s my whole point : WHO IS???
5. 3 10-minute weight workouts that work arms and legs together. I ripped them out and stapled them together. I’ve been doing a set each day. There’s not even time to sweat! These are good moves that will make a difference. Several are done with eyes closed; presumably, that’s for the balance challenge, without sight to corroborate that upper and lower body are making the right choices at once. There’s also a 10min. Cardio and Yoga plan.
6. The article “Just Say What You Want, Dammit” . A topic every girl and woman I know (including me) could work on. The article was decent, if the examples were a little extreme. The advice was basically “Keep trying”. Because speaking up is such a weak point for so many of us, I just like the reminder to be kept on the front burner.
I can’t read the minds of others and cannot expect them to read mine. It’s not that they won’t. It’s that they can’t. And yet, most of the time, what you do want is just fine with everyone else, and you could have had it with ease if you’d just said something.
In keeping with the theme of the magazine, there are no long, reflective articles to get through. There is one but it anchors the whole featured section on saving time. The rest is snappy but very engaging.
Even Oprah gets overwhelmed (how could she not?). She writes about re-centering herself, getting back into each moment. My brain is almost never in the now. I live in the future. The closest I seem able to get to the present in by acknowledging all the things I have. So much is right in most of our lives that we need to spend more time celebrating that.
What else? I was not even a bit nervous to let my 12year old daughter read the entire magazine. I was pleased that she read it! This never happens.
There’s a Merle Norman ad with a lovely grey eyeshadow for a winter (if you ignore the green).
I can’t remember when I’ve enjoyed a magazine so completely. I think you will too.
-->September 2008′s issue of O, The Oprah Magazine is called Get Your Life Back, with features entitled Too Busy To Live and Oprah’s Cure For Feeling Overwhelmed. Now you know why I bought it. It was worth every cent.
Read moreThis Month In Allure July 2008 : Sex Again!
July 15, 2008
If it had been on the cover of any other magazine, I would not have bought it. Last month, I didn’t buy Vogue because the cover said “Let’s Talk About Sex” in reference to the movie, Sex In The City. I don’t care or believe what media tells me about sexiness. Actually, I disagree with most of it.
But it was Allure! It’s my gift to myself each month. I had to buy it and I’m glad I did.
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