A Note from the Author...
People are amazing. Just when I think I've seen it all (so far as the crazy things people do in the name of beauty or in the way they present themselves to the world) some ding-a-ling comes along and dons something so outrageous thinking it's high-fashion, the only words that come to my mind are 'Does your Mama know you left the house looking like that? ' Or there are those sad moments when I see someone trying to recapture their 'Yeah, I do look that good!'' glory days they had before Mother Nature got hold of them with her 'Ha ha...try to fix that with a little squirt of Botox' stick and whacked them upside their ever-loving head.
Of course, if it weren't for folks like that - this Southern Belle would have to find other things to write about...Thank goodness for vanity!
Enjoy. Laugh. And don't get upset if you see glimmers of yourself as you read these pages! It's OKAY. After all, we've all been there.
AND LIKE I ALWAYS SAY TO MYSELF WHENEVER I HAVE ONE OF THOSE TRAGIC MOMENTS...
The Tale of the Frighteningly Freckled She-Pirate.
If you've read When a Southern Woman Rambles...Tragic Tales of Beauty, Volume I - you'll no doubt recall 'The Tale of the Creepy Mole Lady'. The following is an equally disturbing recollection of another sun-fried woman etched into my sweet Southern psyche...
***
One summer, a few years ago, I took my daughter to the pool with her best friend. Unlike previous summers wherein we went to the pool at least two if not three times a week, we had not visited the aquatic zone all that often this particular year because my daughter, who at the time was 13 years old, was busy with enough camps, family trips, and other activities that she was too busy to ask to me to take her. But as it so happened, the time did come to pass when she asked, "Hey, Mom, can we go to the pool today?" And I, feeling an urge to dip my own toes into the chlorinated cement swimming hole, agreed.
When we arrived at the pool, I headed straight for a lounge chair beneath one of the huge mushroom sunshade umbrellas. I spread out my thirsty beach towel, sprayed on my second coating of sunscreen (the first having been applied at our house before I ventured out to frolic beneath the big ol' burning ball of gas in the sky), and got out my giant bottle of filtered water. Once I made myself comfortable and had my iPod playing, I found myself looking around for the excessively tanned, Creepy Mole Lady and her equally sunbaked daughter and granddaughters.
But, to my surprise, they weren’t there. At this point in the story I suppose I ought to say something like 'being a good Christian woman, I immediately said a little prayer for their health and well-being' (after all, it had been nearly a year since my eyes had been transfixed by Creepy Mole Lady's three impressively creepy moles...anything could have happened during that time) but lo, I did not. Not that I didn't want to...I did.
However, at about the same time I realized Creepy Mole Lady and her family weren't at the pool, I spotted another woman whose appearance grabbed hold of my attention the way a snazzy pair of leather boots takes hold of a person with an extreme shoe fetish.
That's right. There was another seasoned woman at the pool that day sporting an über tanned, well-worn, leathery-looking hide that caught my eye. And this is the story of that woman and what my eyes beheld on that day in the presence of the woman I call the 'Frighteningly Freckled She-Pirate'.
Hold on to your swashes and buckles because this is...
The Tale of the Frighteningly Freckled She-Pirate.
Let me begin by saying that the She-Pirate appeared to be somewhere in her late 50s (although her age could have been closer to 50 than 60…after all it’s hard to get an accurate read on such exquisitely sun-ripened flesh). And her hair, which had obviously been chemically lightened a couple of months prior to my seeing her as it bore the 'sign' of a head of hair in need of some serious root control because it had about 3-inches of tell-tale dark hair growth coming down from the crown of her noggin. Likewise, the lower portion of her hair was heavily tinged in a vibrant shade of ‘swimmer’s green’. No doubt thanks to her love of peroxide coupled with frequent visits to the pool.
*By the way, many people think hair turns ‘swimmer’s green’ because of the high concentration of chlorine found in swimming pool water, but that’s not actually the case. Copper is the culprit (essentially, that green tinge is the same sort of patina one might find on a copper dome) and it builds up when the pH level (not the chlorine) is too high in a swimming pool. What's more, one of the fastest ways to bring the alkalinity (high pH) in a pool down is to use an acidic compound like...chlorine.*
However, I digress. Now, getting back to the She-Pirate, if I was forced to give her interesting, two-toned follicle look a simple, easily identifiable name where one could draw an immediately recognizable mental image, I think I'd have to call it a ‘Hairmaka’ because when I saw it, I was immediately reminded of a friend of mine named Jacob and the Yamaka he wears.
But hold on! There’s more to the She-Pirate than simply her sunrise, sunset Fiddler on the Roofesque coif...
More indeed! Because I've yet to really discuss her tan. A tan which practically screamed out that the She-Pirate had long ago embraced the carcinogenically foolish notion of 'sun-kissed' skin = 'healthy skin'.
Please note, before I go any further, I would like to point out that the She-Pirate was not a carbon copy of the Creepy Mole Lady mentioned in Tragic Tales of Beauty Volume I. No. You see, contrary to the Creepy Mole Lady who shimmered like a bronzed geriatric beacon while she baked herself by the pool thanks to all the tanning oil she slathered onto her skin, the She-Pirate didn't use oil. That's right. The She-Pirate neither glistened nor glimmered like a treasured piece of fleshy-bronze slathered in a vast array of lotions, potions, creams, and gelatinous UVA and UVB absorbing goo she could qualify as a walking solar panel. I suppose you could say the She-Pirate was the solar opposite of the Creepy Mole Lady. (Oh, Lord have mercy! The solar opposite...I slay myself sometimes!)
Heck, as far as I could tell, the She-Pirate didn't use anything on her skin because I guess - and mind you this is only a guess - she probably thought that the ½-inch thick 'over cooked Idaho russet baked potato' colored dermal shield she had built up over the decades would protect her from the harshest rays of the sun. And I suppose she had a point. Sort of. After all, an elephant’s skin is nearly an inch in thickness and I’ve never heard of an elephant getting sunburned. Though, now that I think about it, I’m fairly sure elephants don't 'burn' because they're smart enough to throw mud, nature's sunscreen, on themselves to protect their skin.
Speaking of baked potatoes…
Have you ever noticed how sometimes the even best looking potatoes have blemishes on them? Granted they’re unsightly, but they don’t really affect the flavor of them so we overlook the flaws and enjoy the tasty taters anyway. Of course, a gaggle of lumps, bumps and freckles on the outer skin of a potato are one thing but when a living, breathing human being has skin riddled with lumps, bumps, and freckles…it’s a bit freaky.
And the only reason I mention this is because the She-Pirate’s flesh was riddled with a myriad of freckles, most of which appear to have spread out and merged together creating huge, slightly olive green mega-freckles that were splattered across her skin as if she were a walking Monet...you know, from a distance you don’t really notice she’s splotchy, but up close...it’s a different matter altogether. However, I should point out that She-Pirate’s skin wasn't just shades of brown with a hints of burnt-freckle-green scattered here and there because her nose, cheeks and brow had a ruddy, pinkish 'persistently on the edge of a burn' coloring, too. Only instead of looking leathery like the rest of her physique, the rosy, burnt-flesh coloring on her face was accentuated by a spider's web of wrinkles.
Truthfully, I don’t mind wrinkles; they add character to a person and lend an air of sage wisdom to our elders. In fact, I've known and respected many older women who had the gentlest faces with the softest wrinkles; wrinkles to be proud of in their elder years. But that doesn’t mean I recommend dehydrating one’s face like beef jerky to speed up the process!
Of course, given the fact that the She-Pirate was also a heavy smoker, her lips had those weird 'smoker's wrinkles' that come from holding a cigarette between one's lips for extended periods of time. If you're a smoker, you will totally understand what I'm talking about. But if you're not a smoker, imagine holding a drinking straw between your lips for extended periods of time and the way your crinkle together when you purse them like that!
Now, you're probably wondering how I knew she was a heavy smoker, right? Maybe the following will explain my smarter than the average bear deduction... You see, every 45 minutes, when the whistle would sound for adult swim to begin wherein her kids (or maybe they were her grandkids) had to get out of the water so the grownups could swim 'child-free', the She-Pirate would dash...not ‘walk with great purpose’…I mean dash like an Olympic sprinter outside the pool area to stand, barefoot, on the bright white, sun-soaked concrete and smoke at least 2 if not 3 cigarettes during the 10 minute break.
And since I was listening to my iPod, I couldn’t help but giggle as I watched her gingerly lift one foot and then the other foot every few seconds since the cement was so hot she couldn't stand still without the soles of her feet burning. Now that I think about it some more, I might have actually laughed out loud during one 'adult swim' while I watched her because her actions reminded me of watching Charlie Brown and the gang dancing in one of those Peanuts cartoons. Especially since she kept bobbing he head from side to side. I suppose you could call it a nicotine-induced jig, although there were parts of her that really should not have been jigging, or should I say jiggling in public especially in a...bikini. But not just any bikini! No. It was a skimpy bikini!
Bikinis are not for the timid…so on that point, I have to give the She-Pirate a well-deserved two thumbs up. Because she wore that bikini like she was one of those buxom, hard-bodied women on the cover of Sports Illustrated magazine. Unfortunately, her bosom had lost its buxomness long ago. Yes, it’s sad to say, but She-Pirate was boobically challenged because ‘her girls’ weren't sitting where I'm positive they once used to. Rather, they hung low in her bikini top like fleshy, elongated water balloons nestled in a double-barrel slingshot.
Thus far, I've explained the 'Frighteningly Freckled' part of the title but I've yet to hit on the 'She-Pirate' aspect. And I'm sure you're dying to know exactly why I dubbed her the She-Pirate…
It starts with a tattoo.
Apparently, she went through a pirate phase a couple of decades ago because she not only had a time-faded, stretched out Jolly Roger tattooed onto her left breast (although the elongated way it looked told me straight away that the Roger on her breast had lost his jolly many years before I ever saw her) but she also has crossed-cutlasses tattooed entirely too far below her navel which was bejeweled with a petite gold belly ring that made her pot-belly look ever so sexy. One can only assume that the swords were put there to serve as a warning to anyone who tried to follow the stretch marked and gall bladder surgery scarred map on her midsection, as it no doubt led to the treasure box she’d had tattooed on her… low back.
Gracious me! Where did you think I was going to say? Yes, it was a skimpy bikini but it wasn't that skimpy!
My heavens...that treasure box! When she got it, I'll bet she thought it was so cool it was hot! And I suppose one could say that when the ink was fresh that tattoo of hers was the ultimate visual pun…a ‘booty box’ right above her backside, which is often referred to as a 'booty'. But today it's not anywhere close to hot. It's not even lukewarm because it seems that as time passed and the ink faded, her rump was shanghaied by her belly because her hind end as flat as a pancake.
Aargh! So now you know the tragic tale of beauty that was the frighteningly freckled She-Pirate, matey!
The moral of this particular tragic tale of beauty:
Gravity can be a bitch!
No one wants to see an aged Jolly Roger
stretched out like saltwater taffy oozing
down a person's chest!
So, love the skin you're in...
it's a treasure more valuable than
any inky embellishment.
Drag Race Face.
Call me paranoid, but whenever I come to a stoplight or have to stop to make a left turn, I always look into my rearview mirror to make sure that I’m not going to be rear ended by some fool who drives like he’s 3 seconds behind the leader on the final lap at a NASCAR event or by someone with the depth perception of a near-sighted Cyclops and the braking ability of a 2 ton walrus on wet ice. And it never fails that whenever I see the reflected image of a speed demon rapidly growing larger in my mirror, I get the oddest tingly sensation that courses through my body. It is a sense of dread and foreboding that, even on the sunniest of days, is upsetting; but, when the driving conditions are less than perfect, it can be downright terrifying.
Such was the case one day when a pistachio green Honda that had seen better days, as it had a passenger side mirror that had been duct taped into position and its front bumper had been smashed in (most likely the result of someone’s careless driving habits), came barreling up behind me as I slowed to a stop at a traffic signal on a somewhat misty morning. I remember feeling that familiar wave of anxiety wash over me as I watched the driver (a young woman who wore the look of a person running more than a couple minutes late for work) doing a rather sloppy version of the traditional ‘strain and crane’ move.
For those of you who may not be privy to this technical term, the strain and crane is a driving technique wherein one shifts one’s torso and reaches to the side to retrieve something from a pocketbook/book bag/attaché case, etc., located in the passenger seat without actually turning one’s head. This is a learned skill which requires that the driver have an intimate knowledge of all the items within the aforementioned tote-able containers such that she (or he—though more often than not it is a woman) can locate a particular item simply by grazing her fingers across the various unseen objects inside it.
The sign of a successful strain and crane -aside from not crashing the vehicle- is that it can be done while continuing forward at a constant rate of speed. Incidentally, a good strain and crane is sometimes preceded by a backseat tug and lift wherein the carrying device through which one rummages in the aforementioned scenario, is retrieved from the backseat of the vehicle by reaching one’s arm behind the driver’s seat, grabbing said bag, then bringing it to the front all in one fluid movement.
I watched as the driver veered slightly to the left proving Newton’s Third Law of Motion ‘for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction’. She was leaning to the right—her left hand was on the wheel pulling to the left altering the path of her forward moving vehicle...simple physics, really. Thankfully though, her ‘danger-danger’ alarm went off when her wheels hit the shoulder of the road causing her to very nearly overcorrect and enter into the lane of on-coming traffic but somehow she able to keep her bearings and avoid a major wreck. And even more thankfully, she was also able to keep her wits about her long enough to bring her vehicle to a complete, probably bone-jarring, stop before she got too close to me!
I stared at her through my rearview mirror and watched as she grabbed her purse, rummaged through it and pulled out various items that I would soon learn made up her portable cosmetics counter. Then I watched, over the course of several traffic lights, as she ‘put on her face’. Mind you she wasn’t simply applying on a touch of eye shadow or brightening her smile with a quick stroke of lipstick. No, she went from foundation to setting powder in what I figure was a time just shy of 10 minutes.
First came her foundation, Cover Girl Clean with the fresh scent of Noxzema. I know because I immediately recognized the bottle, it’s really quite distinctive. She unscrewed the lid, placed it in between her teeth (I can only assume she did that so she wouldn’t misplace it), and got her fingers well covered with the stuff before she commenced rubbing it all over her face.
And then the light changed. I was happy to see that the mist had all but stopped falling as I started to roll forward. With a quick glance up to my rearview mirror I saw her deftly holding the bottle between the fingers of her left hand as she also gripped the steering wheel while she shifted gears with her right hand. (Such talent, such skill!) Then I saw her car lurch forward just before she whipped over into the right lane. Then she passed me and sped off. And I figured that was the last I would see of her. But no...
She had gotten nearly two car lengths ahead of me. But by the time I’d come to a stop at yet another traffic light, I saw that I was directly beside her. And I simply couldn’t help but look her way. By this time she’d put away her bottle of foundation and was busy with her eye shadow. I watched as she determinedly rubbed the tiny applicator across the color, loading it with the stuff as she intermittently glanced in her vanity mirror and then to the side to check the status of the red light.
It was all quite frantic and yet, it was all somehow quite artfully executed. In fact, it reminded me of a contemporary dance piece...
Rub, rub, glance to the right,
glance forward, apply, apply,
s-m-o-o-t-h, glance to the right—
Next Eye!
Rub, rub, glance to the right,
glance forward, apply, apply,
s-m-o-o-t-h, blink, blink,
glance to the right, shift into 1st.
Again, she sped off and again I thought that was the last I would see of her. Until...
A big rig carrying liquid nitrogen pulled into her lane forcing her to slow down. I could see the rear of her car and could tell that she was itching to get into my lane as she got closer to the center line, practically screaming ‘let me over!’ to the beat up looking landscaping truck a few car lengths ahead of me...but the driver of the Ford F150 would have none of her youthful automotive badgering and held steady to his 45 MPH course.
When we all finally came to another stop, I remember thinking that if she inched any closer to the rear of the nitrogen truck she’d have to apply for a vehicular marriage license! Then when the light changed and my lane started moving forward, I laughed out loud as I passed her and couldn’t help but keep up with her in my rearview mirror as I continued on my way.
The poor girl had to stay behind that nitrogen toting truck until all the traffic in my lane had passed her and then all the traffic from her lane had zipped over and passed her as well. I didn’t see her when I reached the 4th light and after I’d gone through the 5th light I assumed that'd I'd probably seen the last of her so I decided to put her out of my mind. But...
When I was stopped at the 6th light and was busy fiddling with my mp3 player. I glanced to my right and saw her car beside mine once again. She whipped out a pink tube of Cover Girl mascara, the kind with the green lid, and made what was probably the best Howler Monkey face I’d ever seen as she proceeded to brush the stuff onto her lashes, making sure to get a thick layer of the stuff on.
Then I watched as she opened a classic looking little black compact and rubbed the application pad across the pressed powder before she speedily swathed it all over her face; essentially buffing her primed and painted skin with the thing. A few quick side to side glances in her vanity mirror let her know she was done with her road-warrior makeover, so she pushed the visor back up to its upright-closed position. She revved her engine and waited for the light to change like she was preparing to burn rubber at a championship drag racing track. And when it changed, she sped off quick as a wink, and made a hard right into the parking lot of small strip-mall style shopping center.
That was the last I saw of her and I suppose I ought to thank my lucky stars that she didn’t lose her focus and cause a wreck. But somehow, I think that the girl in the pistachio colored car has made that particular cosmetically charged run before because she seemed to know the length of every light and she moved with the speed and efficiency of ten makeup artists on a world class facial-aesthetics pit crew.
The moral of this particular tragic tale of beauty:
Speed kills stupid people with or without makeup!
Slow down!
The Raccoon on Aisle 7.
Seasonal allergies are the worst. Between the itchy-watery eyes, sneezing, coughing, congestion, and the other annoying things we have to deal with during the various times of the year when specific allergens cause us strife -- it can make us absolutely dread the changing of the seasons. The following is the tale of one woman's allergy induced plight...
I was waiting to pick up a prescription at the drugstore one morning when I heard two sneezes so loud they made me and the people around me jump. We, the patrons, as well as the pharmacy technician (which is essentially a glorified cashier who can stick labels on filled prescriptions), immediately turned toward the direction of the startling sound to offer our respective gesundheits and God bless yous. Mind you, the sneeze was loud enough that I expected to see a giant of a man standing there, but to my amazement the gargantuan sound came from a rather petite woman wearing a well-tailored suit, high heels and a name tag that told the world not only who she was but also where they could find her between the hours of 9 to 5. Incidentally, she worked for the real estate agency across the street from the pharmacy.
I politely said, bless you-bless you for her two sneezes (I'm a strong believer in offering 'bless yous' in accordance to the number of sneezes produced) and I was just about to flash her my compassionate, gosh, I'm sorry your allergies bothering you smile along with the customary I feel for you nod but when she turned her head to acknowledge those of us who’d wished her sympathetic tidings, I had to force myself to not laugh out loud. Because when the woman, who was obviously suffering from a terrible allergy attack, looked in my general direction, I couldn’t help but notice that in her attempt to ease the annoying itching of her right eye, she had inadvertently rubbed away all the eye shadow from her upper lid and had also transferred the vast majority of her mascara from her lashes to the skin beneath her lower lid.
To be honest, she looked like a walking ‘before and after’ photo. The left side of her face was neatly made up with a cheery looking pink blush on the apple of her cheek. And she had an eye that had been artfully shaded with various sparkly lavender tones as well as eyelashes that were long, thick, and black. Yes, the left side of her face was flawless. However, the other side of her face, accompanied by her bright red nose and dripping, bloodshot right eye, made her look kind of like a dumpster diving raccoon strung out on Twinkie cream licked off of tossed away wrappers and swigs of soda pop left in discarded cans.
I glanced at the dear elderly lady in front of me (who smelled a bit like an old perfume factory) and gave her one of those oh my wide-eyed expressions as she shook her head and went *‘Mmm mmm, Lordy, Lordy. I imagine that this sweet old woman had quite a time recounting the tale of the drippy eyed, two-faced real estate agent the next time she found herself at the senior center.
*Now where I’m from, if you’re given an ‘mmm mmm’ followed by a double ‘Lordy’ it is an expression of the utmost sympathy.*
As for the bedraggled realty representative, she sneezed again, twice, and looked at the group of customers who were still waiting patiently in line. I’ve no doubt she knew she looked terrible; but, at that point, I don’t think she really cared because I watched as she picked up a plastic sealed package of Visine AC eye drops and tried to open it with her beautifully manicured nails right there in the foot and eye care aisle without even paying for it.
(As a brief aside, I’ve always wondered why one tends to find eye care products in the same aisle as corn and callus removers.)
Unfortunately, her attempt to get to the contents inside the box, which was truly valiant, was in vain because the plastic used by pharmaceutical manufacturers to ensure consumer safety is apparently formulated with some sort of super-polymer that can resist just about anything. But she was determined to get that solution into her eye to ease her suffering. So, she put the little box to her mouth and proceeded to gnaw at the heat-shrunk seam of the plastic until she’d ripped off a bit of the wrapper whereupon she ever so delicately spit it out of her mouth and onto the tightly woven drug store carpet at her feet.
The frustrated real estate agent then grabbed at the small opening she’d made and tried to wedge her finger into the tiny space but couldn’t make any headway so she put the box to her mouth once more and bit at the wrapper again and again until she was able to completely remove it. With the wrapper finally removed, she grabbed the glued flap on the box that kept her from getting to the little bottle inside with the ½ fluid ounce of cooling relief. She ripped off the glued flaps and reached in to grab the eye drops that she so desperately wanted. And I can honestly say I’ve not seen a look of joy like the one she wore when her fingers grabbed the top of the bottle inside that box in quite a long time.
(At this point there was only one customer ahead of me in line, the ‘mmm mmm double Lordy’ lady, and I feared that I might not get to see how this all played out but luckily she had several items in her cart and was picking up prescriptions for her husband as well. So I knew I had at least another 3 minutes.)
With the bottle finally in her anxious hands, I felt for sure I was about to hear her unadulterated sound of extreme satisfaction that could only come thanks to the contents of that bottle. And I think she was thinking the exact same thing because a huge smile crossed her face. Unfortunately, for the drippy eyed eye drop bandit, her elation was short lived because when she pulled out the bottle, she saw another obstacle between the liquid eye solution and relief it promised to on the label. Yes, she had an additional barrier to overcome. It was the dreaded...sealed for your protection super-strong plastic shrink-wrap that covered the actual bottle top.
It was like a scene out of one of those bad black and white Saturday afternoon serials from the infancy of television. I halfway expected to hear a deep baritone voice over the public address system say, Will this madness ever end? Will the twitchy eyed gal ever get those drops to land on her ocular orbs?!
At this point, I actually thought she might just give up but she didn’t. Based on what I saw next, it was obvious she remembered the amount of trouble it took to try and be delicate with the shrink-wrapped box and didn't want to go through the same thing with the weirdly shaped bottle and cap with a protective seal that's even more impervious than the box's outer wrapper. A crazed, somewhat rabid look washed over her face.
By now, she was fit to be tied (or put down - I swanny - Southern for swear - if she had started foaming at the mouth, I was more than prepared to grab the People magazine near me and beat her senseless with it) She wanted, and I mean really wanted those eye drops so she by-passed any attempt to be polite and went straight to using her teeth as they'd proven very effective in getting the outer wrapping off. I watched her put the bottle to her mouth and bite at the tiny plastic scored to tear easily tab that is next to impossible to pull with anything other than your teeth and yanked at the thick stuff until she’d torn enough of it away that she could get the bottle top off.
(But dread...it was my turn to pick up my prescription and I just knew I’d not get to see how the saga played itself out if I went to the counter at that exact moment. I can honestly say, I think Fate was on my side that day because just as I walked up to the counter, someone had pulled into the drive-thru pickup window and the clerk said, ‘excuse me’ then walked away. I smiled as the gospel song, O Happy Day!, played somewhere in the back of my mind.)
I turned my attention once again to Aisle 7 all while doing the 'I'm going to look at you without making it look like I'm looking at you' thing even though I know she knew I was looking at her. It was a little scary. After all, I'd been warned about getting too close to a wounded animal. She could have gone off on me like Cujo. So, I picked up the People magazine thinking I'd either use it to save myself or I'd simply enjoy reading the story about Carrie Underwood. But instead of charging at me like a bull in Pamplona, she stopped.
What was she up to? With the drops now able to be utilized, I expected to see the anxious purveyor of real estate tilt her head back and let drop after drop of the allergy relieving liquid land on her eye but she didn’t; instead, she decided to read the directions to ensure the correct dosage. She dabbed her right eye with a tissue that she had balled up in her hand and said quite matter o’factly, “Let’s see, directions, directions....hmm, 1 to 2 drops...4 times.” And I remember thinking it was odd to see her so casually peruse the instructions after having watched her reenact what looked like a frenzied feeding scene from a hyena documentary.
I along with the three others behind me who were also 'looking at her while trying to look like they were looking at her' only we all knew we were looking at her, watched the woman finally put back her head and apply the drops to the afflicted visual orb. But apparently she’d made a split second decision to forego the directions she'd so carefully read and commenced to putting at least 4 drops in her eye, if not more. Of course, she might have figured it was all right because if the directions said a person could use 1 to 2 drops 4 times a day then surely a person could use 4 drops 2 times a day. Or maybe even 8 drops once a day. Technically, it all works out if you do the math!
Besides, aren't those directions on over-the-counter medications there more as a suggestion than a do it wrong and you could die thing? It would be pretty silly of pharmaceutical companies to put stuff on the market that might actually kill you if you overdosed! (And yes, I'm joking! Lordy, Lordy! My Mama didn't raise a fool!)
Once the deluge of drops had been administered and after a somewhat surprised sounding ‘that burns...oooh, that burns’ and a frantic waving of her hand to cool her eye, the woman blinked a few more times, and sighed. She then dabbed away the excess liquid and smiled. And that was that.
She walked triumphantly to the checkout line to pay for her eye drops, picking up a pack of generic OTC allergy pills along the way. By the time she made it to the line and stood there behind a farmer wearing good old-fashioned coveralls and a John Deere cap dirtied by years of honest labor, I was busy wrapping up my transaction with the pharmacy technician.
As I turned to make my way back across the breadth of the store, I glanced (maybe a little too long) at the woman who had helped to fill what turned out to be nearly 5 solid minutes of my day with a bit of humor and smiled at her. And in return, she flashed her I’m a real estate agent...let me show you something great today smile back at me never knowing that when she did so the first thought that popped into my head was of how she reminded me of Malcolm McDowell as Alex in the disturbingly graphic 1971 Stanley Kubrick film, A Clockwork Orange.
The moral of this particular tragic tale of beauty:
When you know your seasonal allergies
are going into overdrive,
it's best for forego the
accoutrements of beauty enhancers
until the time of the histamines has passed.
Your shiny red nose and drippy-dewy eyes
are all you really need...
Nekked Man Boobs.
(An homage to summer)
I love it when the seasons change especially when we step out of the chill of winter and into the bouncy warmth of spring with all those pastels and fields shifting from dull browns into soft blankets of green. And when the temperatures start to climb up during the day and don't fall into the 'still need an extra blanket' temperatures at night...I know summer cannot be far away.
However, there is one thing that tells me 100%, without a doubt, that summer has arrived. And it has nothing to do with the sound of baby birds singing/crying (I'm not sure which is which in bird language) for food. Nor does it have anything to do with the fact that when I bake a cake, I have to open the window or it gets too hot in the kitchen. No. It has nothing to do with either of those things - although those are pretty good indicators.
What's more, it had nothing to do with the fact that the mercury soared above 85°F before the noon hour. Likewise, it had did it not have anything to do with the sound of children squealing in delight as they dashed around their yards jumping through sprinklers.
Granted the aforementioned, are good indicators; however, for me, the first true sign that summer has returned to my beloved South has nothing to do with anything so...typical.
Rather I know summer had ‘arrived’ the moment I spot the season’s first pasty-white, slightly overweight 50+ year old pair of ‘nekked man-boobs’ (yes, nek-ked...Southern speak for naked) jiggling and wibbling while the owner of said fleshy man-mammary glands sits astride his riding lawn mower and makes his way back and forth across the expanse of his front lawn, cutting down any blade of grass that dares grow beyond what he deems to be an acceptable height.
Oh, yes, it is truly a site to behold. Quite a site indeed. One might liken the moment my eyes are ever-so-lucky enough to spot my first set of nekked man boobs to a little girl's dream of knights on steeds defending castles...until, my dream would be squashed like a fly stupid enough to have landed on my dearly departed grandmother’s countertop (as my grandmother was probably the fastest and most accurate fly swatter east of the Appalachians) because as soon as what I am seeing truly registers in my head, I feel an intensely painful sensation deep within my eye sockets. Then I feel the need to throw my hands to my eyes and lament for anyone and everyone to hear, ‘My eyes! My eyes! It burns! Lord Jesus, it burns! Make it go away!’
You would think that I would figure it out by now that I'm in my forties. But there's something about that rhythmic hum of the engine of a lawnmower that always lulls me into thinking...this year will be different.
But no. It never is. And the only person I have to blame for the painful etching of the moment in my memory is myself because I know better than to risk having my eyes look upon the blindingly bright white torso of one of these mighty weekend lawn-warriors. Sort of like how I know better than to stare at the sun with improperly shielded eyes during a solar eclipse because the intensity of the UV rays a corona emits will burn the retinas causing eclipse blindness. At least that’s what my 4th grade teacher Mrs. Eudy told me when I was 9. I also read about it in a NASA report years later.
However, neither Mrs. Eudy nor NASA mentioned anything about the damage that can befall a person who stares too long at the intense light which is reflected off a half-naked, pale white guy’s torso. Sure, it doesn’t fry the retinas like UV light but still it’s one of those images that stick around for a few minutes sort of like how the flash from a camera causes those annoying little dots. Perhaps someone ought to do a study about it.
But I digress, like I said…I would think that by now I would know better because this happens to me every summer! And every year, I think that maybe this will be the year that I’ll be spared. Only I never am.
Now let me be clear in saying that it is NOT just the eye blinding white skin that gets to me. Because there are plenty of men of all colors who will ride their mighty lawn mowers shirtless like ‘manly-men’ exposing their bare-chested flouncy-bouncy testosterone ta-tas and melon shaped beer bellies as if they were in their 20s even though they’re not…not by a long shot.
Surely, you’ve seen one or two ‘nekked man-boob’ mowers... Maybe they’re in your neighborhood... Maybe your father or grandfather was or still is one of them... Maybe your husband is one... (If so, I’m sure you’ve told him ‘Oh, for Pete’s sake…at least let me put some sunscreen on your back—to wit, he probably goes with his usual response of, ‘Nah, I’ll be fine’. And you reply, ‘Well don’t complain when your back gets red as a lobster’).
Or maybe... *GASP*YOU have sat astride a 20 horsepower grass taming machine sporting nothing more than your shorts, shoes and maybe a ball cap! Surely if you are one of these 'entirely TOO comfortable in their skin' fellas, it's because until this moment you just didn't realize the emotional distress you were levying on the whole of your neighborhood- nay -the world, for the resulting effect ripples much like a wave upon the vast sea of humanity as you zip merrily along up and down your lawn trying to create the perfect 'field of dreams'.
But there are a few (a lucky, rare few) who have not had the opportunity to experience this sometimes weekly display of fleshy manliness. And for those of you, it would be terribly impolite of me if I did not share with you what I have learned so that one day, should you find yourself looking at a pair of jiggly male nipples coming towards you on a hot summer's day while you're minding your own business, you will be able...hopefully...to look away before it's too late!
Imagine if you will the following: It’s a typical Saturday. Billy Bob, 54, and his wife Patty Sue, 52, are going to do a little yard work--
Billy Bob steps outside wearing his faded black, holey, and older than his children Bon Jovi World Tour 1986 concert T-shirt. To this day he will still tell the story of the night he got that shirt which he doesn't call old. No. He calls it vintage. Oh, that concert...he was such a virile stud back then and he knew that shirt would be a total babe magnet because it fit tightly across his athletic chest and the sleeves accentuated his impressive guns. However, that was a l—o—n—g time ago and while his shirt is still tight, it’s not tight in the same places because Mother Nature rearranged things so that all those firm muscles on the top half of Billy Bob’s torso, which seemed to defy gravity years ago, have sunk to his waist line like a deflated soufflé.
You know, personally I think Mother Nature gets a real kick out of doing things like that. After all, wouldn’t you think it a hoot if you had the ability to sic gravity on Princess Perky Breasts so that her knockers wound up looking like Daisy Droopy-boobs? I’m just saying…
Next, draw your eyed to Billy Bob’s shorts…loose fitting khakis he likes to wear because as he says they and I quote, "let a little air in down there so things stay cool" which apparently is a plus in Man-Land. Unfortunately, he doesn’t realize that the roominess is probably thanks in part to the fact that the firm caboose he once had has all but pulled out of the station. Maybe it migrated northward and stopped when it got to his belly, because that’s where all the beer eventually winds up.
Though to be honest, that’s a total guess since I don’t really know where a man's butt goes as he ages, which is weird because the phenomenon of rear-end vanishing seems to happen to all men…eventually. Of course, if you were to ask some of the older fellows who live south of the Mason-Dixon line where I have lived my whole life about how their beer bellies and flat hind-ends seem disproportionate to one another, they’d probably laugh and tug up their pants a tad as they’d say, ‘Haw! That ain’t fat! Naw! That there’s a right good shed to keep the important parts out of the weather!’
And last, let your eyes wander down to his feet where you'll find the shoes guys like Billy Bob like to wear. Oddly, this last piece of his yard safari attire varies depending on the age of the safari guide. You must understand that in Billy’s younger days, he was more likely to wear flip-flops or let his tootsies go au natural, but as he grew older, he decided to opt for more secure and decidedly darker footwear.
Let’s take pause for a moment to ponder this observable fact. Think long and hard about the last 50+ year old man you’ve seen working in his yard. Was he wearing sturdy shoes with thick soles sort of like what waitresses wear? Or was he wearing dark strappy sandals with socks - but not just socks…dark, above the ankle socks? (Why does this happen? Honestly, what on Earth can make an otherwise sane individual do something so very odd as to wear black calf length socks with a pair of shorts? And to take that point further...why do so many men, as they age, tend to wear those same socks with sandals? Seriously! It boggles my mind. Maybe someone will fund a research grant to find out just what it is that makes men have an urge to wear black footwear as they get older.)
Now that your visual center has been properly stimulated, let's get back to Billy Bob and Patty Sue…
They do a little yard work, pulling out weeds and whatnot. And ol’ Billy Bob decides he’s hotter than a pig on a spit, so he decides to take off his T-shirt and tosses it aside. Patty Sue scolds him and says ‘You’re gonna burn, sure as shoot, you’re gonna burn.’ Only Billy Bob doesn’t want to hear her nag at him again about the whole sunburn issue even though every single time he mows shirtless he gets burnt. So, to avoid her further scolding him, he decides he’ll just go mow the lawn because there’s no need in arguing with Patricia Sue, as she always seems to win those logical arguments.
But first, he decides to grab a beer to sip on while he mows. (Did you know in most places, it's illegal to operate any motorized vehicle (car, boat, golf cart, etc...) with an open container of alcohol? Last time I checked, riding lawn mowers are motorized! Now, I know it's a picky technicality, since all lawn mowers can be dangerous when operated. Especially when operated by morons if those same morons have been drinking alcohol, the danger level increases dramatically.) After taking a few chugs from his chilled drink of fermented hops and barley, he heads to his mighty riding lawn-mowing machine!
He backs out of the garage so he can give 'his girl' a quick mechanical once over. And once he is assured that she's ready to tame the wild frontier, Billy Bob then puts on his ultra-chic, oversized Ray Ban aviator sunglasses like Tom Cruise wore in Top Gun back in '86 (my, that was a good year for Billy Bob) and shifts the mower into drive to have at it. He goes up and down the yard, beer clutched in one hand while the other stays on the steering wheel. And as he cruises his lawn, Billy Bob’s man-boobs and beer belly bounce up and down with each dip in his yard.
This is when it happens. Yes, I'm going along merrily with my life...perhaps I'm making my way home from the grocery store, minding my own business, when I pull into my development doing the posted 30 MPH speed limit and I see him. *Look away!* But lo, I cannot!
It’s like I’m a moth and he’s a giant skin covered beacon. *No! Don’t stare! Shield your eyes!* The light reflecting off his bare white skin (and there is quite a lot of it, too) is so bright I begin to blink furiously. *Noooo!* I fumble around my console for my sunglasses only to realize I don't have them! *Must—get—home.* Then I see them...his man-boobs bouncing furiously and coming closer to the road...closer to me! AAAHHH! *My eyes. My eyes! It burns! Lord Jesus, it burns! Make it go away!!*
It seems like hours before I am able to look away though, in truth, it’s only about 3 seconds but it matters not because it’s too late…the image of Billy Bob, his nekked man-boobs, and his beer belly jiggling like Jell-O on that lawn mower is now indelibly impressed on my poor brain. I somehow make my way home. And my head is still reeling from what I’ve seen. After drinking a tall glass of sweet iced tea and reading my Southern Living magazine I start to feeli better. But in the back of my mind I know this won’t be the last time I’ll see this sort of thing. Nope. Because summer has arrived and the grass is growing ever so quickly!
The moral of this particular tale of tragic beauty:
Some parts of the human body are better left to the imagination!
You didn't think I was going to subject your delicate eyes to 'REAL' nekked man boobs, did you?
Gracious Lord in Heaven, I might be a sassy Southern Belle, but I'm not a Sadist!
Give Me Some Sham-on w/a little Glam Rock & a Mullet, too.
***Warning***
The following is riddled with references to the 1980s. It is intended for (slightly) mature readers who don’t mind looking in the mirror and laughing at the all the little wrinkles they’ve earned over the past 30 or so years. In some cases this particular story even been shown to cause spontaneous outbreaks of smiles and laughs.
If you experience any of the following symptoms:
*Nostalgic tugs at the heart;
*Flashes of days gone by; or,
*An intense desire to sit in your car singing along badly to music that would make your kids cringe with your radio cranked up to 11 (which is so much better than 10...)
There's no need to contact your physician. These are not symptoms which point to a dangerous underlying condition. It just means you lived during one hellacious, totally bitchin’ time!
And for those of you reading this who might not consider the 80s as the era that defines you...I’m sure if you were to change the names of the songs, the movies, and events mentioned in it to things from your defining time, it would ring just as true. Maybe.
And now, without further ado...
Give Me Some Sham-on
w/a little Glam Rock & a Mullet, too.
One day, back in 2010, as my daughter and I sat eating our breakfast and watching the morning news, there came a point in the broadcast after the ‘serious’ news and just before the ‘touching human interest’ story, where the hosts sat around a table with two guests and discussed the revamped re-release of the 1985 megahit We Are The World written by Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie, produced by Quincy Jones, and performed by a veritable Who’s Who of the music world under the umbrella name USA for Africa (United Support of Artists for Africa). This gathering of artists who were either already members of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame or they eventually became members included folks like: Stevie Wonder, Paul Simon, Diana Ross, Ray Charles, and Smokey Robinson just to name a few.
But as I said, that was 1985.
Flash forward to 2010... The crux of the conversation was whether or not the revamped 2010 version of the same song, with popular singers from the current music world including performers representing a wide array of music genres, like P!nk (R&B/Pop), Joel & Benji Madden (Rock Alternative), Miley Cyrus (Bubblegum Pop), Kanye West (Rap), and Enrique Iglesias (Latin Pop), is a cheapened version of the song that became an instant classic and helped to define the social awakening of an entire generation. The light-hearted argument went back and forth for several minutes as the hosts chuckled every now and again while they reminisced about life when they were younger.
Even though the banter was polite, I would swear that I heard a few moments tinged with a wee bit of anger when the TV personalities argued, for lack of a better term, over whether or not it should be considered musical sacrilege to touch such an iconic song or if it was alright to offer up a revamped version to a whole new generation of ears who would hear We Are The World 2.0 sung by voices (most of which belong to singers who were either small children or not even born when the song originally came out). But upon further reflection, I don't think the 'argument' had anything to do with the notion of muddying up a classic song.
Rather, I believe the heart of issue had more to do with the thought that 'modernizing' a song which essentially put an exclamation point on the statement that was -- The 80s! -- our decade and the time of our mutual coming of age, made it all seem trivial and archaic. And if that was the case...what did it mean in regards to those of us who lived through the decade when The Wall came down?
The 80s was our time. We were the Madonna wanna-bes; the Duran-Duran screamers; the Bon Jovi air guitarists; and, the two-toned leather jacket Michael Jackson ‘sham-on’ers.
As I wrote that last bit, I chuckled because with each nod to my youth, I can recall such wonderful times spent with my friends back when the world was bigger, fresher, and ours for the taking. In my mind’s eye I can still see myself dancing around with my friends on Friday nights and singing like we were the end-all and be-all. Back then, we didn’t have the Internet to refer to when we stumbled over words that were hard to understand in a song because, more often than not, the lyrics were not included with our vinyl LPs and cassette tapes. So, we’d sit quietly listening to little sections over and over again trying to figure out what sort of lyrical gem was being offered to us. Eventually, we’d settle on a phrase even though we were often wrong.
But it didn’t matter because we shared a common bond through the music we listened to and enjoyed.
Then we’d whip out our Tiger Beat magazines so we could carefully cut out the images of the people we idolized and fawned over. We memorized every single factoid, whether or not if it was true, about them. To this day, I can still hear the voices of my friends as they rattled off a laundry list of utterly ridiculous trivia when we really ought to have been studying for our history or math tests. And now that I have my own teenage daughter I can understand the goofy smile my parents used to wear when they’d listen to my friends and me talking faster and louder than necessary to one another because I know they were recalling all the good moments from their own teen and young adult years.
Of course, there were some bad things from the 80s, too...
John Lennon was killed in 1980. And the NASA space shuttle Challenger exploded on January 28, 1986 at 11:39 AM. It was a day that was etched into my memory. I was 15 and sitting in Mrs. Hammond’s World History class...right in front of the TV because I was one of the shortest kids in the room...watching what was supposed to have been a glorious, historic moment in time, only to turn out to be one of the most tragic events ever captured on film. For 72 seconds we were all there with those brave astronauts hurtling towards the majesty of the stars and then, in one split-second, it all came to a mind-numbing, explosive end.
I’ll never forget the sense of loss I felt for people I didn’t even know. It was the first time I’d ever really been slapped by the invisible hand of Fate. It was one of those ‘I’ll never forget where I was when it happened’ moments that every generation must deal with and ranks right up there with the Kennedy assassination in ’63, the breaking of the Watergate Scandal in ’73, the tragic death of Princess Diana in ’97 and the fall of the Twin Towers in 2001.
Even so, we humans are a resilient lot and we weathered all those dark storms just as we will, no doubt, trudge through the various other hardships we, as a world, will face in the years to come. Besides, it was the 80s! There was so much other good stuff - No, not good...GREAT STUFF happening then, we couldn't help but bounce back. It's just how we were made.
And as with any defining era, the 80s brought about words and phrases which left an indelible mark on our modern day vernacular. It was the time when all those baby boomers became Thirtysomethings who longed for real champagne wishes and caviar dreams and wanted to know the answer to one of life's most intriguing questions: where’s the beef?. These were the things they pondered as they sat down in front of clunky, newfangled personal computers and tried to figure out why they struggled with the new medium when their children seemed to turn into gamers and hackers practically overnight. It was almost as if this new generation had been born with computer chips in their brains.
There were also Yuppies—Young UP and coming Professional Snots (all right, so maybe ‘snots’ isn’t what the ‘S’ really stands for, but, hey, if ‘snots’ hits the spot, who am I to argue?). And sometimes, if two yuppies chose hook up and decided to Just Say No’ to making little yuppie puppies, we had a name for them, too. They were dubbed DINKs (double income, no kids).
The 80s was the heyday of synthpop and VHS tapes for VCRs that needed people with PhDs from M.I.T. to figure out how to use them because of all those stupid buttons that did abso-flipping-lutely nothing. It was the age of Dynasty and shoulder pads. It was also the era of heavy (glam) metal rocking men sporting shiny Spandex pants that left nothing to the imagination. These were guys with serious attitude and some equally serious fluffed up, tall hair (hair that probably put more chlorofluorocarbons in the atmosphere than all the Miss America pageants combined!). Or, if they were sizzling-hot rockers, they rocked massive…mullet hair.
Ah, yes, mullet hair.
The defining do of the 80s that bled into the early 90s. It was a two-toned look that told the 'Tale of Two Men Trapped In One Head of Hair!' One man with a cut that was all business in the front. And the other sported an often frizzy, continual party in the back. My oh my I do not thing the 80s would have been the same without the mullet! Even today, nearly 30 years after the mullet-climax, there are still folks who choose to keep the neck-warming, forever-rocking hair style alive! Perhaps the style has endured thanks to another 80s novelty 'the music video' where young people were bombarded like never before with trendy fashions and huge personalities they never even knew existed!
And according to the Buggles and their one-hit wonder song, Video Killed the Radio Star (which ironically was more popular as a music video than a radio tune) the 80s single handedly changed the course of music as we knew it. Suddenly, radio disc jockeys who would spend their days pulling LPs out of cardboard sleeves to place the vinyl discs onto a turntable all so we could enjoy songs using our nifty, new, super portable Sony Walkmans had to contend with television!
Heavens! Watching one's television to hear music?! How could it be? Sure, there was Casey Kasem's America's Top 10 Countdown and Dick Clark's American Bandstand...but those shows were only on weekends. (I suppose I should mention the show Solid Gold - but all that gold lamé still haunts my dreams and I get that oh gross, I just burped vomit in my mouth sensation, so I'll pass.)
Radio was --no-- IS an institution! How could it be that suddenly young people would willingly sit in front of their televisions, all tuned to the same station, for hours on end in the hopes of getting to see a 3 minute music video when they could simply turn on their radio and hear their favorite group singing several times on different stations? Or at the very least they could rewind and fast forward through nifty, easy to use cassette tapes. Talk about a tailspin in the industry where the voice of the DJ coming across the airwaves was like hearing a message from God! What could have happened to change the way we listen to music?
What happened? MTV happened! And it was...GLORIOUS! Oh, how I remember getting so excited whenever the VJ (Video jockeys) would say 'Coming up in a few minutes, Duran-Duran and their latest video. Stay tuned!' So, I stayed tuned like a zombie. Of course that was back when MTV actually showed music videos!
But we weren't always in front of the television. There were times when we had to do other things like go to school. Only in the 80s...we did it in style. We had our Member’s Only jackets and wore Ray Ban aviator sunglasses just like Tom Cruise wore in Top Gun. We all got Footloose with Kevin Bacon and cheered when Baby did that jump into Johnny’s arms at the end of Dirty Dancing. And we laughed uproariously as Bill Murray’s Carl Spackler in Caddyshack was foiled time and time again by that dastardly dancing gopher.
We also had...We Are the World. A song which was played ad infinitum on radio stations (and on MTV) to the point that we were sick of the 7 minute and 2 second song (yes, 7 whole minutes plus 2 extra seconds!) and prayed we’d never have to hear it again. Even though for several years following the release of We Are the World, either it or the other kumbayaesque song of the decade,That’s What Friends Are For (also known by many as the 'Dionne Warwick got all her friends together because she's Dionne Warwick and could do that sort of thing' song) were the 'go to feel good' songs that were played at every school function and sung, usually badly, at civic gatherings.
While they are both nice songs...in truth, there was something different about We Are the World because it was more than just a song. It was a work of art; painted with words and framed by a melody. This is why I can understand how people in my age demographic might feel a little put out by a new, fresher spin on classic songs in general being 'freshened up' by new singers who aren't artists so much as they are copy cats. Because it, and all those other totally 80s things, were our things. Our claims to fame. Our golden sunshine memories.
Now that I am older than the people I once idolized as a teenager were back when they were 'all-that' (after all, when I was a teen, 20 was perfect - 30 was 'old' - and 40, well anything after 39 meant 'early bird specials' and dentures were right around the corner), I can sympathize with people who say ‘how dare a group of young whippersnappers try to sully our music with their squeaky, practically pubescent voices?’ Just as I can understand that even though many folks my age know the reason behind the musical do-over was to earn money to help the millions of people displaced by the earthquake in Haiti in January of 2010, they wonder why some socially minded youngling out there couldn't write their own special song for their generation. Surely there had to have been ONE wrinkle-free cherub back in 2010 who could have written something unique? Right?
Personally, I think the real reason behind the disquiet among those of us who still have T-shirts from concerts performed by the groups Journey or Poison is because if they didn't at least act 'a little bit outraged'...it might mean they've accepted the fact that they...we...have gotten older. Not old mind you, just older. And that can be a hard thing to come to grips with because getting old is a fact of life but actually admitting we might have a toe over the imaginary young/old line can really get to some people.
But as for me, I honestly don’t mind. In fact, I’m sort of glad my daughter gets to enjoy a fresh spin on the classic song because until she saw the piece on that morning news show...she had never actually heard it before! Imagine that!
And what’s worse? Passing the proverbial torch to a new generation or letting the fire die out completely? Hmmm, I just totally got an urge to watch Weird Science and play with a Rubik’s Cube. Interesting.
The moral of this particular Tragic Tale of Beauty:
Fear not age, as it happens to us all.
Fear only...the photographs
of what you looked like when you were young
and thought your 'look' was the end all and be all.
For THOSE are the photos that will
come back to haunt us when we least expect it!
About the Author.
L. Avery Brown, a former secondary level educator with an extensive background in US and European history, not only spent over a dozen years dedicated to teaching, special education, and curriculum development but she is also an accomplished orator and thespian in both standard theatre and musical theatre. Since retiring from education in 2007, she has devoted her time to writing; something she's loved for as long as she can remember.
Professionally speaking, when Avery isn't busy working on her own projects, she is a literary liaison (helping her Indie Author friends and associates get everything ready for the big query so they don't feel like they're trying to move the world alone), a freelance editor, amanuscript evaluator, and she likes to review books…especially those written by Independent Authors.
For fun, she maintains a personal observation and humor blog called 'When a Southern Woman Rambles...’ which helped set the backdrop for her series of When a Southern Woman Rambles... books. Born and raised in 'The South', Avery, a Southern Belle by birth, currently resides in Austin, TX with her family.
To learn more about Avery, please visit her author's website www.laverybrown.com. And feel free to follow her on Twitter @LAveryBrown, too.
Impressum
Texte: L. Avery Brown
Bildmaterialien: L. Avery Brown
Lektorat: Editing advice and assistance by Preston Randall, Patrick Sean Lee, Judy Colella and John C. Laird
Tag der Veröffentlichung: 18.07.2013
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Widmung:
To mirrors everywhere. We hate you. We really hate you.