Housebound Beauty

Not leaving the house in two days plus recently discovering the existence of lipstick has made me feel vaguely like Baby Jane.

Blanche, you aren't ever gonna sell this house...and you aren't ever gonna leave it either.

Normally I don't wear makeup at home alone, but because of Snowpocalypse (SnOMG, Snowmaggedon, etc.), today is the second day I've gotten ready for work, only to check my e-mail and see that my manager has kindly recommended I work from home.

It's been partly fun—I feel a bit like a saucy housewife (no pool boy, alas), what with the contrast between my college sweatshirt, pencil-updo, and bright red lips. But it's also making me feel a little ridiculous, like I am indeed waiting for a poolboy who isn't ever going to show up. It's a well-timed reminder that my recent plunge into the joys of 'stick is thrilling to me in part because it's a relief from decades of having approached my makeup kit with either a quiet sullenness or a sense of self-satisfied duty.

I love doing this project because of the varieties of viewpoints I hear from women I interview, and I'd initially thought that doing this would help me come up with some sort of beauty manifesto of my own. It's too early to tell, but thus far I'd say that what I've learned is that I needn't have that manifesto—that our attitudes toward cosmetics and beauty shift daily, even hourly, depending on mood, circumstance. Hell, it's built into the whole conceit: The stuff washes off, right?

The lipstick is still on, though. Happy snow day, America—