Before I Put on My Make-Up

Still in Oklahoma City for the day job, in a hotel I’m really not thrilled with. What I get for letting someone else pick it!

As I put on my make-up this morning, I noticed that the nasty lights over the mirror made my skin look green. At least, that’s the excuse I’m using to explain the puffy bags under my eyes. But, suddenly, I had this memory of those make-up mirrors with the lights on either side, that you could stand up on your vanity table. They had something like four settings: indoor, outdoor, evening and office. You could set the lighting so you could craft your color scheme to look best in that particular lighting.

Office was decidedly green.

This says so many things about how the world has changed. Designing a cosmetic scheme for different events in the day is no longer a priority for most women. Not all offices are studies in green fluorescent lighting. (For verisimilitude, Mad Men really should have used it. But who wants to see people in that light?) And who really has a vanity table anymore?

Being in Oklahoma City turns my mind to the past. My grandparents met here, back in the 30s. My grandfather managed the Criterion Movie Palace, which is now gone. They left the high-rolling scene here in a scandal, exiled to the backwater of Denver. Now this city is a declining ruin in many places. One of my colleagues asked why it declined and Denver boomed.

I don’t know.

But this city has beautiful places, too. With lots of renovation going on. What goes around, comes around.

One day I’ll send the city all those photos of the Criterion. I keep thinking someone would love to see them.