The Joker

 I'm a wearer of makeup.  Not a lot, mind you, but enough so that my face shows up.  It's all about the eyebrows, really.  Or rather, my lack of them.  To be fair, the Universe did supply me with a place to start.  I do have about a quarter inch that grow in an appropriate starting point above my nose in the corner of my eyesockets.  But the rest is up to me and my reliable, Maybeline brow pencil.             

Some mornings, like today, a strange phenomenon will occur visually.  It's all in my head, of course, and this often happens when I am extremely tired or hungover.  This morning, I am mostly tired, but I confess, I may have overdone it a tad with the wine last night.   I am strangely taken by surprise each time.  As I apply my makeup, it will seem mask-like and detatched from my face, giving me a strange, often goulish appearance.  And in these moments, I wonder if it is some strange preview of what's to come.  Is this a vision of my elderly self and how my makeup application will become skewed and over-applied?

We've all seen them.  The old ladies who clearly can't see their own faces and end up with clown-like masks. 

1. The eyebrows are too dark, too large, and obviously drawn. 
2. The lipstick is around their mouths but extends well beyond the boundaries of their lips and it doesn't seem to be done on purpose (like if they wanted to make them appear fuller as we are told to do by those over-painted gals at the makeup counters). 
3. Blush is gaudily apparent on a pale, wrinkled cheek and almost painted on in a small circle.
4. They look like The Joker.

Which begs the question,  "Which Joker will I be?"  Will I draw a cartoonish, clown-like mask ( Classic Joker) or a grim, melting, demented mask (The Dark Knight)?  I mean, it's inevitable.  I will be one or the other.  I would like to think that I'll keep my mental faculties and eyesight intact and healty to the very end, but my gene pool says otherwise.  And, at a mere 41, I am already showing signs of forgetfullness and an inability to read small print.

Alas, I'll have to see how things play out.  But know that I will spend the next 40 or 50 years on this planet doing my best to apply my makeup properly.  Although, I sense as I get older that I will take advantage more often of the opportunities that drawn-on brows afford. 

Depending upon mood, you can draw yourself suprised, comical (Lucille Ball), angry, worried, sad-- you name it.  I have noticed on my own face, some mornings, a tendancy to over or under draw them, depending on my state of mind.  So, perhaps I should rejoice at the clean slate that is my face.  Instead of the chore of waxing or plucking endlessly to tame an overgrown unibrow, I have the advantage of creating the perfect eyebrows, a glorious frame for the windows to my soul, each and every morning.