It goes like this: a woman visits this blog –which is obviously all ABOUT image and appearance– and doesn’t like what she reads. Instead of saying, “Thanks but no thanks for your advice, as I don’t intend to add even lipstick to my daily routine,” or simply leaving without commenting, she does a hyperbolic pile-on. It sounds like this,

My grey is coming in and turning 40 in two weeks. I have no intention of dyeing it. Why? Because, I’m not Oprah – I can’t afford to have a hairstylist, makeup artist and airbrush going 24/7. – quote taken from More.com

PeaceBang ADORES hyperbole, believe her. It is one of her favorite all-time writing devices. She just thinks that in cases like this, the hyperbolic, avalanche effect is irrational, defensive and rather ridiculous. A box of hair color costs $8 or so. If one chooses to dye her hair, this does not necessitate a concomitant commitment (say THAT four times in a row fast!) to hiring a hairstylist, make-up artist or any other service provider of the kind. It necessitates nothing whatsoever. It is a color job, and it can grow out. How did we get from “Gee, I bet a rich, bright hair color would really flatter your skin tone” to hiring a full-time beauty staff? EXCUSE AVALANCHE, that’s how! TIMMMMBERRRR!

It is true that attention to one’s appearance can have a bit of a domino effect: when we see how good we look and feel with an updated hair style, we may be excited about extending that good feeling to new attention to make-up, clothing, accessories, etc. However, this is never required by anyone, and certainly not by PeaceBang, who would like to remind her readers that It’s All About You, Pigeons. PeaceBang is but a mirror: what you see in her suggestions is your own reflection gazing back at you, asking “How do you like what you see? How is that working for you?”

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PeaceBang does NOT love the winter! Herein begins a Mutually Supportive Rant! PeaceBang dislikes the dark and cold of winter, the short days of winter, the dry skin and lifeless hair of winter, the pneumonia and other ailments that make her beloveds suffer in the winter, and she does NOT love the tons of snow and the ice everywhere that cause her to have to think about where she’s walking lest she slip and wind up on her keister as she just did taking out the recycling. I’m such a winter-time klutz I’m amazed I haven’t broken anything yet. *knocking wood*

Speaking of slipping, yesterday I actually fainted for the first time in my life, and I don’t want to discuss that in any depth except to say that it was startling but I’m fine. Sometimes an empathic personality does not work in one’s favor. Fainting is funny! “I am on the floor” is actually a very funny thought if you immediately realize that nothing serious is wrong with you.

Fat! Fat! Fat! Raise your hand if you too feel like a spud right now: I know I can’t be the only one. I’m a Weight Watchers drop-out, a totally absentee gym member and an enthusiastic consumer of wintertime comfort foods. My chickens have come home to roost in the form of weight gain that puts me squarely (or roundly) between sizes. This means that I am either wearing floppy, unflattering clothes or overly-snug, unflattering clothes. I really should just don a black poncho and leave it at that. It is so dreary to find combinations that look halfway decent! Can’t I just wear my cute fleece nightgowns all day?

I am starting on a vegetable soup program that I hope will help: I do love soup dearly. If only I could stop garnishing it with home-made cheese croutons…

So PeaceBang is puffy. What else is new?
She is happy to report that while it will take time and effort to de-puff her figure to any noticeable degree, she has found a way to fairly quickly de-puff the bags under her eyes. It is a Garnier product with one of those names the cosmetic industry loves — something wonderfully Frenchy and faux-scientific like “Garnier Nutrisse Anti-Matter Gravity-Defying De-Puffification Roller.” It costs quite a bit ($12) but I’ve been using it for several weeks day and night and it seems to be lasting well. I love that it dries well enough that you can wear it under make-up.

So there you go. Boys and girls with Eye Puff, give it a try. Everyone else, join in with General Wintertime Ranting or just go have yourselves a nice day.

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I hope you are well and ready for this weekend and the next!

I’ve wanted to write to you for a long time, so here we go!

Here’s the background: I’ve just begun the transition into pulpit ministry at my home church. I’m 42 and I’ve been a member since I was 7. (Yes, this is crazy. All of my clergy friends have told me so, and I’ve encountered lots of challenges. But I digress… That’s a separate email!) It’s been over 20 years since my church has had a woman associate minister, so I know I’m setting a tone. No pressure, right?

Here’s the situation: I am a big girl. I’m 5′11″ and my size ranges from 16-20. I love pants and I’m not a fan of jackets. I love long sweater cardigans and tops. My pastor and I don’t robe up every Sunday, but every now and then I direct the choir, and I need to make sure my glory is always covered. This summer/fall I discovered that some of those cute knee-length and above-the-knee dresses that are all over the place will work as tunic length tops for me. The cut has to be right, but I’ve found a couple that will work. (I have a pic of one.)

This weekend I was out shopping with my mother looking for a belt to wear with a cute Vera Wang dress she bought at Kohls. My mother told me in a way that only a mother can that I had gained a lot of weight lately and maybe I shouldn’t wear a belt with it. She suggested I wear something around my neck that would draw attention away from my waist. Sigh. After she saw the look on my face (keep blinking back those tears), she started trying to help me find a belt. It was too late. I ended up a couple of funky, long necklaces and wore them instead. It looked ok, but it’s not what I had envisioned.

So, do I have to wait until I’m a size 12 to wear a belt around my waist? Should I then toss out the (faux) wrap dresses in my closet? I don’t have a well-defined waist, so maybe I should avoid trying to define. ??? Do I ban my mother from shopping trips? Haha

If it helps, I have a couple of photos.

Thanks for everything you do.

I wrote back thusly,

Hi dear!
Well, belts can be tough. They really do work wonderfully to create a waist for those who don’t have much of one, but if we’re super lumpy, a smoothing undergarment helps a belt do its job.
It depends on what kind of big girl you are. If you’re tall and heavy and basically not a series of meatballs lumped on top of each other, as I am, I think wrap dresses and belts sound smashing. Why the heck not?

I think keeping the line of the clothes long and fluid (with cardies, etc.) is great for elongating the shape and creating an elegant look. Sometimes, seriously, a big necklace around the neck can chop up the body and make us look chunkier. So there, Mom! Strategizing the length of the necklace is important to avoid that.

Why don’t you send photos? Although my immediate sense is that you know exactly what you’re doing and just suffered the insecurity that any of us would feel after a Mom Bomb.

So K sent me these photos:

Vera Wang at Kohl’s. I seriously LOVE this. I actually love the long necklaces and prefer them to a belt. They’re very chic and the combo looks super comfy as well. Bonus!

Shoes by Sofft. What a wonderful color shoe for any pastor’s wardrobe. Goes with navy, black, grey, ivory, brown… great investment, because Sofft shoes are not cheap.

I love this tunic look — she’s shaped it wonderfully, it’s a terrific print for her, and the pants are just right. Hair, make-up, big smile… it all works to great effect. Brava!

After getting a gander at these photos, I wrote back to K,

I totally love these looks! This is the kind of thing I’m talking about — just bringing some pizzazz and creativity to our clothing. I LOVE the dresses and pants thing, because you have got the proportions exactly right: nothing is too big or too small, the belt is a great width for you (if you did a thin belt with that outfit it would be too bitsy with the bold colors, although I think you could do a thin belt with a more traditional sweater set combo. Sure, something at the neck would have been a nice touch with the orange dress but since it’s a fun print, you’re certainly not drab without it.
LOVE the purple shoes — we’ve got to get those online.
As far as the unintentionally hurtful mother thing, who can’t relate to that!!?So I encourage you to take mom on shoe shopping expeditions and jewelry/accessory/bag expeditions and invite a supportive friend to do the clothes shopping with. Seriously. Those throwaway “I’m just trying to help” comments can be so loaded with ancestral, internalized misogyny that we have to treat them as major emotional dangers. I look at you and I’m like, DAMN, WHAT A BABE! And a babe who knows how to dress.

Right?

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That’s what I call “NO FUN SHOPPING.”

But you know what else is no fun?
Yoga pants that are so worn that they’re practically see-through — and starting to get holy in the literal sense–and a sports bra that comes unhinged because the back is so frayed. Wearing things like that is depressing and even dangerous. Who wants to be walking the dog in public when the pants finally shred to bits? I had started wrapping a hoodie around my waist in case I caught my pants on a briar and had a wardrobe malfunction, and that’s just no good.

Another thing that you really have to bite the bullet and spend money on, sweethearts, is a good pair of athletic shoes. You just can’t wear those for years and miles and except them to serve you well. It’s like this: I just learned that my insurance program no longer covers chiropractic care. So what’s the smarter investment: $80 for a pair of good athletic shoes or $100 for one chiropractic visit?

My jeans, aside from being too tight and way out of fashion, are so worn out that I’m starting to throw them away, too. Shopping for jeans is one of the least enjoyable activities I can think of, so believe me — I put it off for as long as I can. None of my pants except for one black pair fit me well these days, but I figure I can work some camouflage, wear skirts, and just hang tough while I whittle down some. The jeans, however, are in no condition to last me very much longer no matter how well I may fight the battle of the bulge.

Oh, GEEEEEEEEZ. This is SO HARD!
Let’s have a group whine.

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I went in to get what the Hair Cuttery advertises as a $10 Color Zap. I had my hair colored very nicely there a month ago and it had faded. I had an event to go to in Chicago this weekend, so I went in for my ZAP.

They zapped me with the exact same color they used on my the last time, but it made my hair a dark, dead brown.
“Where’s the red?” I asked. The gal could see I was miserable.

“I think the last time you came in, you had all of those highlights. Now that they’re covered, it just didn’t take the way it should have.”

I’m not buying this AT ALL, but I said, “Well, it’s a dead brown and I’m depressed. Please fix it.”

OHHHHHHHHHHHH, she fixed it alright.

I now have pomegranate red hair. I have screaming raspberry lollipop red hair. I have “You’d Better Not Walk Out the Door Without A Carefully Considered Outfit And Make-Up Or You’ll Look Like A Bloated Old Hooker” Red Hair.

But that’s just my “identified issue,” as a friend helped me see. The real issue is that I am feeling lousy about myself and my appearance, and all of these hair misshaps are just icing on the cake.

THANK YOU SO MUCH to the lovely anonymous person who sent me the book Curly Girl, which has taught me how to deal with my officially formerly-undiagnosed wavy hair. I’m still confused by the whole new concept of not trying to blow dry it into submission, but I’m sort of enjoying the experimentation.

Please, no advice solicited on the low self-esteem and weight and food stuff. They are perrennial and I know what to do. Just sharing and hoping you’ll get something for yourself out of my struggles.

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I tried.
I let it air dry.
I did not brush it.
Sometimes, I brushed it.
I conditioned it. I used curling products.
I used sponge rollers.

It never looked anywhere as decent as it looked in that ONE halfway decent photo I took on the day I had it cut.
I learned a lot about curly hair.
And I learned that the cut I got was just wrong, wrong, wrong for my texture and type of hair.

Live and learn.

I am a professional. My hair has to look groomed, and it was not looking groomed. I had to keep it in a wide headband in order for it not to look like a frizzy, bedraggled mess (except for a few miraculous moments when it wasn’t — but those were rare).

I realized upon close inspection this morning that the hair was quite VERY unevenly, which was, of course, an interesting discovery. Nice to pay someone $50 to cut your hair unevenly!

Given that I live an hour from the salon, I visited my local MasterCuts tonight for a blow-out and decided to ask the stylist there to trim the cut and help redeem the shape from “square” to something more flattering. I swear I am not lying when I tell you that it was looking like Benjamin Franklin hair.

She did. She blew it straight. My heart sank into my feet as I realized I had one of those Suburban Mom cuts. But at least it’s not square anymore, and it’s even, and it’s shiny, and it will grow, and I can make teeny-tiny ponytails still (I would have cried if I couldn’t make my ponies) and I can add some product in the morning before church and give it some oomph.

I Suffer So We Can All Learn.

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WHY oh WHY can’t I find any of those little sneakers here!!??

whine!!!

I found a pair of pretty silver sneakers yesterday but they were so flat-footed they didn’t have that chic look at all. The design was too Keds-like to work. What I want is a sophisticated shoe: not all athletic-y with the bumps and treads, but not so whispy as to look like a mocassin, either. I want a silver sneaker with a small wedge and a streamlined, but substantial foot. Laces aren’t necessary – a zipper will do — but laces are best.

I saw these all over Greece — why oh whine didn’t I buy some there?

Any ideas? I’ve looked through Zappos under silver/sneaker/wedge and all the search engines. I know these shoes are out there because I’ve SEEN them. Do we have any readers in Athens?

This is as close as I’ve been able to get, and they’re kind of meh. I want something with more of a wedge and a snappier, less runner-shoe design.

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I shampood it with straightening shampoo.
I towel dried it.
I put in KMS curly-making goo.
I blew it dry with a thingmajingy (diffuser).
It is straight and floppy and has jaggedy ends.
I added some Cocky by Bedhead to give it some lift and piece-out the ends.

It is just flop. Soft, lank, with a few waves and good body in the back but mostly a big head of nothing.

What I plan to try:
Blowing it out straight and forward with volumizing foam at the roots. I will piece out the ends with a more clay-like product.

(Believe me, I got a whole bathroom cabinet FULL of hair products.)

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You’ve played this, right?
You choose a haircut out of a magazine or you see it on someone and you say, “That’s what I want MY hair to look like! Please, Mr. or Ms. Stylist, cut my hair and make it go like THAT!”

And then you wind up with a ‘do that either…

a) looks like a hot mess;
b) winds up being very style-intensive to get it to do what you want it to do;
c) winds up requiring tons of different products to get it to look like anything, or;
d) ends up fine.

Now, you must understand that PeaceBang is not one to obsess too much about hair. She knows that it grows, and she cuts and colors her own with confidence that whatever hideousness may result on occasion, change is good and hair does grow back. And if it doesn’t grow back for some reason, we can start investigating the beauty of silk scarves and turbans.

But for some reason my usual attitude has totally failed me today.
I went to a salon yesterday with a friend who was getting treatments for her birthday and saw a young stylist with EXACTLY the hair cut I have been wanting for myself. It is a sort of long, shaggy bob with blunt angles and a slightly longer front than back. I have been letting my hair grow for a year, so I knew I had enough length to do it.

I have not had even medium long hair since college, so it may be that I was more emotionally attached to my longer hair than I thought. It may be that my longer hair was a wonderful memory of my sabbatical, when I wore pigtails and ponytails on my foreign travels and threw my hair back in a clip while it dried. It may be that my longer hair represented something to me about femininity or freedom, since it required no styling or drying with a blow dryer.

I should have thought about this before I had a gal named Kirsten chop my ponytail off yesterday.

I also should have remembered that my hair has a lot of wave in it, and realize that Kirsten’s shaggy, sexy, layered bob would become a total Curl Crime Scene on my own head as soon as the humidity hit it.

Looks not bad, right? Kind of cute, even?

Just a lucky shot. This haircut is going to have me looking like a totally bedraggled mess on Sunday mornings.

Oh, hai! That’s actually not a worm crawling across my face, it’s just mah HAHR. Also, do ya love my frizzy layers stickin’ sideways out my haid? ME TOO! Praise the lord n’ thanks fer comin!

Please, help. Tips? I’ve tried it with a headband: NOT good. I’ve pulled it back: meh. Am I fated to blow this sucker out straight every day? I’m wicked uncoordinated with a blowdryer and even worse with a hot iron (although I do own one).

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Or they just look sloppy? I mean, would you ever stand around like this? Do you notice how the length of the skirt is terribly unflattering?

This pants model is doing a great version of the International Stance Of “I Really Have To Go To The Bathroom:”

And this gal is so contorted that I wince just looking at her:

What she’s trying to do is create the illusion of a waist in that horrible top. Poor dear.

But you wouldn’t be fooled, would you? None of these garments except the first one are worth your time, no matter how “creatively” the photographers pose the models.

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