HOARD THE VANISHED BRAND

I'd complained about twigs in the corner of my eyes. My pal, sister, daughter in-law handed me a small blue box , saying "It's just a little gift, under $40 -- eye cream, 15 ml."

(I'm fossilized like a bug in amber -- an eighth of an ounce I can picture -- mention ml and I'm hopeless. Inside the box was a one inch diameter container. )

Albolene sat on the backstage dressing room table, next to the grease paint, rouge, shadow, liner, and powder. It was a summer resort in the Adirondacks -- Carol Burnett got her start there. As the "swing girl" understudying everyone, I was earning $125 for the summer, plus room and board.

How do you do stage makeup? You watch! Do what the other guys are doing. Layer it on, take it off with Albolene -- icky wonderful stuff that stays on your face forever, unless you rub vigorously with a wet, hot washcloth.

Those were the days when I hoarded the name brand makeup that I wore every day without fail. Store ran out of it! Woe! Finally got a substitute -- bought five jars. Years after stores ran out, I was still wearing it. 'Tis a tale told by thousands of women!

Woe -- Albolene went up in price. Okay -- Johnson's Baby Oil more or less did the trick.

Daughter pal Shareen (Shareenvintage.com), who knows absolutely everything about what's the latest in glamor-beauty-health things, bought the blue box at a fancy store. It's a well-known place that supplies the high-price, best cosmetics to those who believe the higher the price, the better the ingredients -- "better" ingredients are BETTER!

Those who don't believe, like me, think you're buying better promises -- proof is what you see in the mirror. Spend more or spend less? Either way, you're seeing what you want to see.

I used a pinkie finger's daub on my eye twigs. Didn't check the mirror. Used it two more times. The blue container's booklet described in romantic terms, the "soothing" aspects of the product. Googling Albolene, I saw its relatively low price, and a new slogan: "It's what your grandma loved and used!" Looked up Baby Oil -- a blogger said it left a slightly irritating residue on her skin, that came off with washing.

Aii Yi! All the words above this line, tell the story we've all heard. The super best: Probably a gyp. Familiar brand name: A rose by any other name .... But hey, "You're worth it."

So here's Em, fossilized in amber.

Every once in a while
I pat on baby oil.
Or do nothing.

"... GOT THE WHOLE WORLD ..."

.
He's reaching out and touching the world.

Does it bring tears to your eyes? It does to mine.

Young, he is -- strong strides, always energetic. Have we ever seen him tired, really worn out? Oh yes -- we've seen PR photos of him with some of the guys, showing us that like all guys, he and his cabinet and his advisers relax once in a while.

He is like a young Daddy, full of piss and vinegar, taking on the neighborhood gangs, taking their punches, even brutal, ugly, below-the belt attacks -- not always with a grin, but he always stands up to them, looks them in eye, and tells them --"You are wrong!" Says it strongly, clearly (maybe a flicker of anger showing), but he's a Daddy, teaching them even when he reprimands.

How often have we shivered and worried, and inside ourselves, wished the people who hate us, the foes, the enemies, who are people like ourselves, would stop hating us and be friends....

While Obama is over there with them, we're praying, hands clasped. Praying like needy children ... fix it ... didn't Daddy fix the top when it wouldn't spin ... pick us up when we fell and hold us ... make the pain go away? The awful possibly of a bully somewhere pushing the red button that could destroy the world. The ruthless furious members of gangs who would kill themselves rather than let us win or think we're winning a fight that none of us want.

All that, all the crazy killing, murdering -- can he, could he, will he make go away?

We know he's trying, want him, desperately want him try and keep trying.

We, the needy children, we're standing back, as you have to when the chief is taking charge and trying to take care of us. And praying that he'll be okay. That no crazy person will hurt him. That he'll keep going, looking them in the eye, telling everyone, even those who hate us, that we're have to stop hating and live together.

HAIR

Remember when "one glove" Michael Jackson first appeared with kinky, long, wet looking hair? It looked like recently un-braided, braided hair, and became very stylish. Some people still wear their hair that way. It never went out but other styles have come in, way IN.

I don't know if you noticed, but I certainly have -- females these days wear their hair Like H E R.

Blond-brown, shades of golden brown or light bronze -- it's been getting more and more popular. It started after 1994, got hot, and hotter by 2004, and now, right now, it's more than ever T H E LOOK.

Shoulder length, sometimes longer, randomly wavy ends, center part that is not neatly parted, so no part works fine.

Is it her hair style, or her that made her the most memorable friend in "Friends?" Believable actress, comedic, touching, able to dance, sing, cry, be boisterously rah-rah, hugely seductive or prissy prim -- all that, plus a ideally proportioned shape, and neat, right, perfect facial features. (But not one of those typical movie star faces, out of the box of perfect faces, all of which seem similar.)

I didn't see the show in its heyday. I'm snobby -- anything with canned laughter gets me clicking other channels. And in the mid-nineties, we lived in our Malibu log cabin -- no cable, just two local stations. But when we resettled in NYC, I caught a bit of the show, then started looking for bigger bits, and "Em," who isn't a fan of anyone on TV, belatedly became a fan.

I have long hair that's been long since I was twelve. Even when other styles are IN, I know my pulled-back hair style, the way I make two ponytails into a double bun is fairly unique. When I wear my hair loose, it usually attracts attention.

Well, the days of attracting attention with my long hair are gone.

Yoo hoo Jen! If you get blue over those two, (you know who) -- its you, not HER that women all over the world have been imitating for more than a decade -- grandmas, lady execs, moms, teachers, actresses, models, chic young woman, wild girls, teenagers, kid sisters, famous females as well as ordinary females.

Is it your spirit? Your hair? Who knows exactly what it is, but YOU are the one, Miss Jennifer Aniston!

ORANGE MOSAIC TABLE

JC and I were fighting. It was serious. We couldn't get rid of the problem. After we'd talked about it for a week, nothing was solved.

He'd been doing "Hamlet" while I was finishing a tour of England with my dance company. The girl who played Ophelia kept phoning him. I wanted him to tell her "'Don't call me anymore." He knew she was seriously depressive, suicidal, and didn't want to hurt her.

We sat at a coffee table we'd inherited from B. (My friend B had just gotten married, and was building a new life with an architect who designed rectangular furniture, modules that contained your bed, desk, closet, shelves -- you name it, it was in the module.) So, we were sitting across from one another on B's Danish chairs, foam rubber covered with a pleasant brownish-orange tweed.

Before JC had gone out of town for "Hamlet," before I'd gone to England, we'd bought orange mosaics, sheets of one-inch squares -- a ten pound box, enough to re-do the bathroom floor.

"JC, you said --- "
"No, Em, that's what you said, and I said ---".

Back and forth, we argued and fitted mosaics in a circle in the center of the coffee table. What do you discuss, if there's a needy neurotic girl interfering with the balance of husband and wife? Husband's audition for a new project, as you lay an orange square next to the previous one in the ever-enlarging circle? Wife's new choreography idea, as you position another orange square, passing a box-cutter back and forth, chopping off corners that have to be excised, so the mosaics can lay in a circular shape?

With interruptions for normal things, in between circles of mosaics, we exhausted his Hamlet, Ophelia, auditions, and Em's choreography ideas --iff'ed, maybe'ed, and planned a trip to L.A. where there might be new opportunities for us both, and created a beautiful coffee table with an orange mosaic top.

It sat in the center of our living room while other trips, choreographies, plays came and went, and successes earned us money for renovations, and everything orange and brown and worn in that living room, became spring green and fresh white wicker.