Give a stranger a compliment this weekend
This week I had something to go to that I wasn't particularly nervous about, so I thought. But then I had two stress dreams about my outfit for it, so clearly at least part of me was nervous. But when I got there, the first woman I saw when I walked in told me how great I looked, and you guys, that helped so much. I love giving and getting compliments from strangers (not street harassment, which is not a compliment). There's an older man who is often on the corner by my BART station, and when I walk by him he always says "Good morning, beautiful!" in such a sweet way, and it makes me happy every time. Sort of related: despite my love of lipsticks, I rarely wear foundation, but on important days, or days where I haven't gotten enough sleep the night before, I wear tinted moisturizer (there are so many names for this now, BB cream/CC cream, etc. etc. but they're all a version of the same thing). And my favorite one is Bare Minerals Complexion Rescue. People told me about them years ago, but when I went to Sephora to check them out, I was super irritated because they only had ten potential shades, and I was shade 8. And look, my skin color is always just on one side or another of the paper bag test (this is not a good or bad thing, to be clear, it just is), so there should always be far more colors for women a lot darker than me than two. They have since expanded their shades in between some of those, which is great, but they still don't get darker than the shade 10 that they had originally, and when shades 1 through 6.5 are all for light skin, it makes me grumpy at makeup companies in general. Which is probably another reason why I love lipstick so much, because since I was a teenager loving fashion magazines but never seeing anyone of my color in the teen magazines that I read, at least I could always look good in the bright lipstick colors they used. Oof, started off talking about compliments and makeup, and then went off into a racism tangent, isn't that how it always is?
I bought THE SEVEN HUSBANDS OF EVELYN HUGO after the Fug Girls did a giveaway for it, and just the description of the book made me so excited that I bought it immediately. I started it this weekend, the day after I finished MARLENA, which I talked about last week (and it was SO GOOD you guys, everyone go read it right away), and I'm only halfway through and am already loving it. It's about a mid-thirties biracial writer, who is trying to advance in her career, who gets to interview a legendary actress and find out about her life. I savor every chapter, all of which are full of old Hollywood glamour and misery, which for women, people of color, and LGBT folks (all of whom have major appearances in this book) seemed to go hand in hand. I get on a plane today and I am so excited to read it while drinking some sort of airplane cocktail.
Speaking of cocktails! My drink of the summer so far has been a gin and tonic with Campari ice, and every time I share a picture of one on Twitter or Instagram, someone asks me why I've been hiding this from them. Here is where I found the recipe, but you have to multiply this by a bunch to fill up an ice tray. So this is how I do it:
Campari ice
6 ounces water
4 1/2 ounces Campari
Mix together in a measuring cup, and pour into an ice tray. A few hours later, place in a glass (carefully, because of the alcohol they're still a pretty slushy freeze), and add whatever you like to them (just tonic water, just sparkling water, any of the above with lemon and/or gin, your imagination is your limit). Enjoy, preferably in one of your caftans that you ordered a few weeks ago.
Have a great weekend!
Jasmine