Social Omnivores and More

 

Recently I learned a new term: Social Ominivore. It refers to someone who eats as a vegetarian when at home, but will eat anything when at a restaurant or as a guest at someone’s home. The thinking is that they really prefer to not eat meat or fish, but they don’t want to make things difficult for others in their social circle. If only everyone with dietary preferences would think that way.

 

Given the proliferation of allergies and the popularity of gluten free and other diets, this seems like an extremely considerate, or social thing to do. Of course, some dietary restrictions are medically necessary. But veganism frequently is not and vegan products have become ubiquitous. One of the items that caught my eye was a California-made vegan mattress being sold at the Fifth Avenue “experience center” of Avocado Green Mattress. I can’t even…

 

But I want to return to the social side of this realization. It got me thinking about other things that I do in a social environment that I don’t do when at home. The comforts of home allow me to ignore so many aspects of my appearance that I pay attention to when we go out. Or at least when I expect to run into friends or neighbors when we go out.

Take for instance shoes. I used to be a shoe-aholic. When I worked in Manhattan, I had so many pairs of shoes, my coworkers called me Imelda Decker. It was a head nod to Imelda Marcus. (Look her up.) Now I spend most of my time at home in socks. I put shoes on when I go out. Unless I’m going someplace fancy or if I expect to run into someone who might notice my feet, I wear basic, serviceable, easy on-and-off footwear with my socks. In a social setting, I’ll trade my socks for some type of sheer hose and I’ll consider a shoe that has at least a bit of a heel. I guess I’m no longer a shoe adopter. I’m a Social Shoe Adapter.

Since I’m on the topic of what I wear when we go out vs. at-home comfort, let’s talk lingerie. Right up there with my socks, I favor cotton tank undershirts instead of bras. I don’t get a draft across my midsection with tanks. Likewise, cotton underpants that would never be confused with anything sexy are what fill my dresser drawer. But I’ll admit to being a Social Lingerie Gal. My mother always made me wear my best underpants when I left the house. “What if you get hit by a truck and they have to take you to the hospital?” “What if?” indeed. Never happened in the five decades she and I shared on this planet. But it ingrained in my head the notion that I should consider wearing some nicer lingerie if I planned to be going very far from home or would be out for any length of time. Not sexy, but at least stylish. OK. Maybe not even stylish. But without holes and with elastic that isn’t stretched out.

Something else that I do rarely now that I’m retired is wear makeup. I had a friend who wouldn’t even leave her bedroom until she put on her face. I, on the other hand, still have makeup left from weddings I attended that ended in divorce decades ago. These days, when I say I’m going to put on makeup, it means some eyebrow pencil, mascara and a touch of blush on my cheeks. And you’ve probably guessed by now, that I do that so seldom that it definitely makes me a Social Face Painter.

In a totally different vein, my last item is one that brings me back closer to the socially considerate nature of the Social Omnivore where this essay started. When I’m out of the house, I try to watch my language more carefully. When I traveled on business years ago, I spent a lot of time in the field with the sales force. Let’s just say that none of those guys would ever have called me a goody two-shoes. These days I try to leave my four-letter-word lexicon at home. Instead of a potty mouth, I guess you could call me a Social Sweet Lips.

I’m sure there are other social activities that I follow when we’re out, but these are the ones that come to mind right now. If you give it some thought, I’ll bet you’ll come up with a list of socially motivated behaviors of your own.

Copyright 2023 Business Theatre Unlimited

Pandemic Beauty Regimens

A friend contacted me during the stay-at-home phase of the COVID-19 pandemic to participate in a Zoom meeting with several other women. She described it as a chance to do hair and makeup, adding LOL at the end. LOL is right, thought I.

I keep my hair very short, getting it cut at least every 6 weeks. It will be 12 weeks out from its last cut when we Zoom. As for the makeup part, in a typical year, I put on makeup maybe five or six times. That’s not per week or month. That’s per year. It pretty much depends on how many weddings we go to. I stopped putting on makeup for funerals years ago. The mourners at funerals these days have eyesight as bad as my own. They’re just glad I can still show up and share memories.

So this “do hair and makeup” for my friend’s Zoom party got me thinking. Exactly what should I do to prepare for this event? I color my own hair. It’s a few weeks past its prime, but the roots aren’t really due for a while. Will the emerging gray show up more on the computer screen? I know those cameras magnify the tiniest details.

More importantly, how do I do the “styling?” I can’t just mush it with my fingers like I can when it’s short. It’s an understatement to describe my current look as raggedy. It’s more like extreme bed head. Years ago, I cut my own hair, but I’m not that flexible anymore. I’m sure I can’t reach around to the back now. I could draft my husband to help; I cut his hair, after all. But he has challenges to his vision for which the treatments are on hold during the pandemic. It would tempt fate to let him near my head with our barber shears.

I suddenly had a great idea. I’ll wear a hairband to push the wayward locks back from my face. It was a look I wore often when I was young and I still have a basket of bands in different materials and widths. A test run showed my hair isn’t long enough yet for those to work. I have plenty of scarves I could try tying on my head, but would I look like Rosie the Riveter?

I decided to defer a decision on my hair and move on to the makeup part of my friend’s suggestion. The other women on this Zoom call are all at least five or ten years younger than I am, so they have less mileage on their complexions. As I already mentioned, I never was one for a lot of makeup. I have a bottle of base coating from decades ago and lipstick that’s almost as old. Mostly I just do my brows and lashes and dust some color on my cheeks.

As I lean in to the mirror in my bathroom, I see that there are now wrinkles all around my eyes. When did they arrive? Probably about the same time as the crinkly lines I see around my mouth. I guess I haven’t leaned in that far in a long time. I realize there will be virtually no chance of hiding any of these without a major spackling job, and I’m not about to get into that. It’s not like I’m going to someone’s wedding, after all.

The close-up does remind me that I’ll need to pluck all my chin hairs the day before the call. Ditto for shaving the fuzz on the sides of my face with that special device I found in the “As Seen On TV” section of the local drug store. I decide I should also spend some time thinking about the lighting around the area where I plan to sit when we Zoom.

I get my laptop and try out a few locations, being sure to do it at the same time of day as the get together is scheduled. We have windows on four sides of our condo, but only two sides are options that make any sense. I try out a few spots, having first removed a cat or two from the place I plan to sit.

Good grief! My neck wattle shines like a distress signal in the fog! No matter how I angle the laptop or reposition the chair, there’s no getting rid of that glow. It seems like the only solution will be a Dr. Brix-type camouflage—I have plenty of scarves, after all. Of course, that means I’ll have to coordinate my hair scarf with the one on my neck, which will take some doing. Then the perfect idea came to me: I’ll just wear my COVID-19 facemask. It hides everything.

Copyright 2020 Business Theatre Unlimited

Retirement Transitions - Lose Your Looks, Lose Your Money

As if retirees don’t have enough problems planning and managing their finances, especially with what’s been going on in Washington, this week’s Time magazine reports more bad news.

An economist from the University of Texas has written a book titled Beauty Pays: Why Attractive People Are More Successful. I’m a tad suspicious of the sources, since the article says simply that “studies indicate” that good looks can earn you a lifetime premium of $230,000 vs. an ugly otherwise equal peer. Supposedly, the discrepancy is even more pronounced for men, if you can believe that.

I did some quick Googling to see if I could turn up more about the study or studies that informed this book. Mostly I found reviews of the book, and I didn’t have the patience to dig very deeply. So, you can take this at face value or say phooey.

You might think that as a retiree, the earnings spread would be of little concern to me. However, one has to assume that if there is any substance to the good professor’s findings, you don’t just earn more if you’re good looking. You probably also pay less—get better deals on, say, a new car.

The reason this bothers me is that as I age, I see my looks fading away. As I peer into the mirror each day while I’m brushing my teeth, which mercifully are still all there, I can’t help but acknowledge that I’m not as attractive as when I was younger.

I don’t simply mean comparing the current me to the earlier me. I mean comparing the earlier me to my peers back then and comparing the current me to my fellow retirees. This leads to the inevitable conclusion that I’m going to be paying a premium for my purchases and services as I move through retirement.

There are other physical factors to further complicate my prospects for a financially stable retirement. I can recall many reports that tall people are treated as having more clout and are generally more successful than short people.

Like most folks over 60, I’m starting to shrink. I was flirting with 5’ 2” at one point in my life. Now I’m sneaking up on 5’ 1”. Does this mean my already disadvantaged height is going to become more of a bogey in my later retirement? Sadly, that’s likely to be the case.

I suppose I could budget more money for makeup and spend more time applying it. My physical therapist has me doing exercises to stretch my spine. I could plan to continue PT even after I’ve reached Medicare’s annual cap. But none of that would really be me.

No, I think I’ll just be happy with my shrinking body and the face in the mirror. I may not have as much money as my taller, more attractive friends, but I’ll always have my family. And a nice, but affordable, bottle of wine. I can live with that.