I feel better about myself, life, the universe, and everything, if I put on a ton of eye makeup before I leave the house. And by ton I mean I could technically qualify as a drag queen.

So, y’all, I’m about to interrogate you the way I’ve been interrogating everyone else in meatspace for about five days. Last Tuesday I woke up with a terrible sore on the roof of my mouth. I figured I’d just eaten too much popcorn and irritated things and it would take a day or two to heal up and get back to normal. But Thursday, it burned and throbbed constantly. On Friday, I took a good look at it and saw that it wasn’t just a sore, it was a big huge pusy canker sore. And it was sitting there on my hard palate, no healing, just burning and searing and throbbing.

I need a remedy. I’ve been swishing with hot salt water. I’ve tried swishing with diluted lemon juice. I’ve tried over the counter anesthetic. I’ve been eating acidophilus caplets ever two hours, like clockwork. And it’s still there. And it still hurts.

What else can I try? Why is it taking so long to heal? I’m starting to think I might need to see a doctor, but I would feel so silly. “What’s the matter?” “Canker sore.” See? Silly. Halp!

I would like for it to be fall now, not only because it’s too damn hot to live, but because when the weather is cooler, I feel like I have a lot more lipstick options.

Since we last talked about lipstick, I have probs doubled my collection. I am not kidding. I gave in, went nuts, and am now keeping my collection mostly in two 3×5 index card holders, but they are no longer sufficient to the task and so those are full and my overflowing makeup bag has liners and stains and my desk has five different lipsticks in it and I’ve always got four or five things in my purse and wow.

And also I got obsessed with nail polish and doing my nails every day and that’s a collection unto itself.

I want to start beauty blogging a bit, but my camera died and it would cost more to send it to Canon to fix it than it would to just go to Wal Mart and buy a new point-and-shoot (which would, funnily enough, have about twice the megapixels) and so come pay day, maybe I will take more pictures of my lip products for you to enjoy or ignore, at your leisure.

Hi y’all.

Last week, I spent a fantastic afternoon in Georgia visiting Poptart. We were eating and bemoaning the travesty that is tea without ice and out of the blue, in answer to a question I wasn’t really sure I’d asked, she said, “Or you could start blogging again.”

Christopher, sitting across from us, eating a panini, and drinking an iceless fruit punch, choked. Once he got his breathing under control he said, “People keep telling her that.”

“Really?” Poptart asked.

“Really,” Christopher said.

“Yeah,” I continued. “I go out with Chez and Apollo and one of them says something funny and I say, ‘Oh, somebody needs to tweet that.’ Then one of them says, ‘No, you need to blog it.’ I say, ‘Bah.’”

“You do!” Chorused Poptart.

“Apollo calls it a near-blogging experience,” I added.

Poptart and Christopher laughed and I prodded at my salad while they continued to talk.

Everybody who knows me, who knows this blog, who ever read it, seems to be waging a subtle campaign to bring it back. “If only for Free for All Friday!” They say. Honu Girl, who’s there to hold my hand when, in the twice that I’ve fired things up since last Christmas, I’ve had full on panic attacks, says to do what I think is best, always subtly nudges me toward writing again.

The only person I haven’t really heard from is Doc. But he got as sick as I did last winter, so I send him good, loving thoughts and hope he’s happy.

Meanwhile, y’all, last winter I got very, very sick. Heartsick and soulsick and everybitofmesick til I didn’t want to get out of bed, because I’d just go back a few hours later; I didn’t want to eat because I’d just have to do it again a few hours later. I didn’t want to talk, or sing, or write, or bathe, or eat, or talk or anything. I just wanted to lie in bed and sleep, or not. First I stopped commenting on stories, then I stopped reading them. I stopped chatting. I stopped emailing. I stopped writing. I stopped singing. I stopped reading anything. I stopped talking. I stopped getting out of bed. The only times I got out of bed were to work and to run. Go to work; run five miles. Rinse. Repeat.

But I had a good husband and good friends to help me out. They pulled me out of bed and called on the parts of me that know that work is good, and success is right, and made me talk. And they made me tell them all these things. And then they said, “Sarah, it’s time for meds.” And I said, “Whatever. It’ll just be the same tomorrow.” And they said, “That may be. But tomorrow and then another tomorrow and then another tomorrow and eventually it won’t be that way.” And they were right.

I got some meds. And it took a while for them to kick in, as it always does. I got to the point where I couldn’t be bothered to tie my shoes. I got to the point where I couldn’t be bothered to type, and so sat staring a screen or two, hands in my lap, not thinking or feeling or anything. And then they kicked in and I started to feel better and better and better.

And now I look around what I feel like should be the wreckage of who I am, but it’s not particularly wrecked. It’s just a bit dusty, a little neglected, and needs a hug or two. If you’re reading this, I’d hug you. If you’re reading this it means you subscribe or, with mysterious faith, still click a link everyday or every week to see if something is still happening. Thank you. Thank you very, very much. This endeavor is as much about you as it is about me.

Sarah Et Cetera has always been more about community than cult of personality. In my imagination, I am a hostess at the swankiest of salons, providing scintillating topics and delicious refreshments for erudite people eager to discuss the issues of the day, philosophy, spaceships, and wizards together. And that’s what I still want to be.

So, don’t call it a come back, bitches, but here it is. Changes, of the big sort, coming soon. And no guarantees for weekday postings and ad-free-ness. I’ll post when I have something to say and sit tight when I don’t. I want to talk more about lipstick than anything else, so you know, there’s that. But I’ll be here.

If you want to be here with me, welcome. I heart you. Please stick around, help yourself, and let me and everybody else, know what’s on your mind. Sarah &C isn’t about me. It’s about all of us.

Love,
Math Girl

I’ve been wandering around singing, “Have a holly jolly Christmas! Just in case you disappear….”

I don’t know where it came from or why it sounds so good there, but I’m doing it. Those really seem like the right words. It’s been that sort of season. I need to make up more words to creep the song up further.

Piggybacking onto yesterday’s post, l like makeup. I like it a lot. I love it, really. In both a long-haul, we’re-in-this-together-baby way and in fits of lusty passion that leave me ashamed and vowing to do better. I always have a tube of Ruby Woo somewhere near me. That’s true love. I once sat in Honu Girl’s car, in the pouring rain, chanting, “Cult! Of! Cherry! Cultofcherry! Cultofcheery!” like Steve Martin in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels because MAC’s Cult of Cherry had completely taken over my brain with furious, all-consuming cupidity and covetousness. I’m still embarrassed about it, but what are you best girlfriends for if not to shepherd you through questionable life choices, like two eyeshadow quads, two lipsticks, and a gloss?

And lately, I’ve taken it up to 11. Two weeks ago I stood at the Chanel counter, with a bleeding foot and hot, red, still sore to the touch, freshly threaded eyebrows, and contemplated spending about $70 on two little liquid lipsticks. Seriously, just two. They’re $32 a piece and with tax and my foot hurt but Coromandel looked alligator fuckhouse incredible on me. Dragon wasn’t so bad either! If the sales associate (she was so not a makeup artist) hadn’t tried to blow a bunch of smoke up my ass and/or I’d had a bandaid for my foot, I’d probably have left with at least one.

And that made me realize I’ve turned some kind of corner. I’ve started thinking about it in terms of Becoming a Real Girl. Which is lousy and kind of insulting, I realize that. But for me, that’s how I think of it. I think back to being a little girl and while I liked running around in the woods and riding bikes, I also really liked playing in makeup. I used to get in trouble for wearing makeup to school, which I applied on the sly, after my mom had left the house but before it was time for me to go. And then in high school something happened that made me scale way back and limit what I wore. I put on a makeup uniform one day and never took it off. Every day I put on Clinique Superpowder Double Face, Almay One Coat Mascara, and L’oreal Drumbeat Red and that was it. I even remember the feeling of being told, second-hand, that a boy I liked thought I wore too much makeup. I sat there thinking, “Three products! Just three!” as if that would somehow make it better. How I should have said, “Whatev!” and bailed is a story for another time. Then there came college and all my urges got channeled into strange nailpolish colors. Then there was the rest of life, and a serious case of depression and making myself look pretty with makeup seemed like a waste of good makeup. There wasn’t going to be pretty no matter what color I smacked on it, so best just to stick with the uniform and not draw undue attention. Except for that red lip….

And now, slow but sure, I’m finding my inner 11 year old again, who is fearless about makeup and will put on 10 tons of slap before school, no problem. I think about that too-much-makeup conversation and go “Three products? How about three separate eyeliners, just to start!” I look back at the Ruby Woo post and think that there is so much more to love and I should have loved early and often. But I’m making up for lost time! MAC has a collection coming out on December 26 that is going to drive me nearly as nuts as Cult of Cherry did. Warm and Cozy is made for me and what I’m into right now just like CoC was made for me then. Honu Girl will confirm that I need more neutral eyeshadows like I need a hole in the head, but I can see myself buying three of them, two of the lipsticks, three of the glosses (dont’ need 3N; have 4N from the New Neutrals collection of several years ago and have wished for another chance to get 2N!), all the shadesticks, and the By Candelight skinfinish. I mean, all that wonderful yellow!

I used to get up early every morning and read fanfiction about Severus Snape while I drank my coffee. Now I get up, read through an ever-growing list of beauty blogs (a post for tomorrow, maybe!), and plot the day’s adventures in makeup.

*… and red lipstick. Michael Chabon, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay

It was fun for a while… like a dream in the night.

Maybe I’m learning.