lipstick vogue

When the weather got warm, I started wearing fuchsia lipstick.  I bought two shades, one a little darker.  I usually wear something very subtle, a mauve or light wine or something almost natural.  But there was a time when fuchsia was very popular, maybe in the early 80s, when I wore it, and it looked good on me.  It's a lot more extreme than anything I ever wear, but it actually suits me.  Anyway, I like it.

Even though it was a four-day week, it was a bear.  There was a lot to do and to keep under control, and the days went by fast, and the stress level (that I put on myself) was kind of high.  Like I said, they appreciate and respect me a lot there, and I want to make sure I continue to deserve that.

I slept badly last night.  I woke up around 2:20 to pee, and then I couldn't get back to sleep.  I was actually thinking about the novel I'm kinda sorta writing.  It was originally around a woman and two men, one of whom had made three kids' record which she adored as a child, and the other one his peculiar brother.  She meets them and has intense but very different involvements which each in turn.  I kind of have the three personalities down, and I know that the odd brother shows up from the midwest and moves in with his brother.  The original idea was that she gets she gets involved with the kids-records guy and he dies, then she gets involved with the peculiar brother.

But last night, I came up with some details about her involvement with music, movies and books that could end up being more of the focus of the book (the one I'm not sure I'm writing), with the brothers as characters but not central.

What I've written so far, what I thought was the beginning, was a description of the brothers, then a flashback to the woman as a little girl, getting her first record player.  The kids' records are called something like "Weird Records for Weird Little Kids," "More Weird Records for Weird Little Kids," and "Strange Songs for Young'uns."  The idea was that they were kind of hip, mildly subversive albums, kind of a kid version of Tom Lehrer or Lenny Bruce, and that mostly they were given to smart, cool kids of smart parents.  One part that's been there since almost the beginning are her kid names for the three albums:  "The Red Album, The Blue Album, and the Striped-Shirt Album."  So that section would be, or would have been, her attachment to that musician as a kid, and rediscovering him (presumably now playing adult music) twenty years or so later.

It's a shame that I'm thinking about totally changing the format.  This is why I've written a lot of beginnings of novels but not too many middles or ends.  Anyway, I'd hate to throw out what I wrote, because it's pretty good, and I even have a title that I'd have to change if I took the focus off the musicians (who are actually both weird and peculiar).

Of course, another reason that I've never finished a novel is that I tend to write about writing it rather than just writing it.  But even though I've written very little so far, the idea has been rolling around in my head for a while, and keeps growing in ways that surprised me.

I recently reconnected with an old friend after about ten years; we had worked together in the 90s, when I was around my mid-thirties and she was around her early twenties.  I told her that I remembered when her girlfriend broke up with her and she was terribly upset, and came into my office crying, explaining that the "roommate" she always talked about was actually her girlfriend and that they'd just broken up and she was very upset and should she tell Winnie (her other supervisor, besides me, though she did mostly work for Winnie).  She was surprised that I remembered.  How could I have forgotten?  I felt so terrible for her and so moved that she came out to me...and more than a little amused that maybe she thought I hadn't figured it out like two minutes after I met her.  Lipstick, she's not.  But she's smart and funny and talented.  She did invite me to several of her birthday parties, but I felt a mite self-conscious, being both older and straight.  But hey.  Like all of the assumptions and hierarchies in high school, it just kind of slips away when you get older.

The reason I felt moved to get in touch just now is that there a Lucille Roberts (gym) in the building that I work, and her "roommate" used to teach aerobics there.  She was also surprised that I remembered that.  My short-term memory is starting to suck, but my long-term memory is still freakishly good.  I only know that because people are always shocked by what and how much I remember.

School year over means I'll get to see Lily again soon.  She had a terribly difficult and painful semester.  We e-mail pretty often, but I do miss seeing her.