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The Bare Face as Radical Act

Something changed in the relationship between women and makeup, and the change happened in public. For decades, the beauty industry sold women an escalating arms race of coverage, contour, and correction, with each season demanding new products to fix problems most people never knew they had. The reversal now underway is striking for its specificity: women with access to every cosmetic resource on earth are choosing, on camera and at major events, to show up with nothing on their faces at all.

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From Barbie to Borrowing: Hanging Out with Dad

I am convinced that my father was born with a newspaper in one tiny hand and a neck tie instead of an umbilical cord. I mean this in the most complimentary way possible; the man has a work ethic that can make any zealous overachiever feel lazy. As a kid, I hardly appreciated or even noticed how tirelessly he worked to support my family and me.

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Sex is Unimportant: Intimacy is Everything

A friend of mine who is amicably divorcing his wife, told me a tale of woe the other day that he has felt unloved and sexless for many years.  He didn’t blame his wife, he blamed himself for putting too much emphasis on sex and not enough on intimacy.  “I should have done more cuddling,” he whispered to me.

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George and Jolene: Ten Sentence Story #119

George and Jolene met under odd circumstances and though they hit it off pretty well, there were always doubts about how long it could last.

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Join Me at RelationShaping

I’m pleased to announce a brand new blog that I think you’ll enjoy reading: David W. Boles’ RelationShaping ->(.  Here is our new, semiotic, logo that suggests the intention of the site:  How technology Re-Forms and Re-Shapes our Mind-Body memes in a Relational Universe and it indicates “The Spear of Technology Piercing the Body In Situ ->(.”

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A Boss is Not a Friend

In America we have, for some reason, come upon the notion that your boss must like you:  Your boss must be your friend.

The problem with that shallow thinking is friendships prefer equality over stratification. Friends don’t like to take orders from friends.

A boss’ job is to instruct, direct and lead and there are no co-boss companies that work well because the direction is divided and opportunity is split like Solomon’s baby.

If your boss demands friendship — be wary — because at any time the friendship can be revoked while the master-and-slave dyad necessarily remains. 

If you wish to befriend your boss, immediately retire that notion.  You will be seen as cloying and clever — and neither of those labels can ever overcome the emotion of friendship falsely offered.

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Control Freak or Watchdog of Excellence?

Has anyone ever called you a “Control Freak?”
If so, what exactly does that phrase mean and how did you respond when the label was first attached?

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Kate: Chapter 18

A cup was filled with coffee. Jean-Michel Pinot added two teaspoons of sugar and a dash of soy milk, purchased of course at a small deli and made that morning by the owner of the deli. His therapist was a strong supporter of natural foods and not eating animal products whenever possible. He did not have such strong feelings about avoiding coffee, however, as she probably brewed about five or six pots over the course of the day. True, the majority of the coffee was given to clients, but Dr. Rosenbaum had her fair share.

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Kate: Chapter 16

Browsing somewhere around the self-help section, Felix felt two hands cover his eyes. He then heard what he assumed to be the voice of the person to whom the hands belonged say, “I’m going to give you three guesses, and one of them had better be right.”

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Everything Crashes

by Louise O’Brien

I want to get over you. But it’s not working out that way. I have no delusions about who you really are, but my heart does. My heart has plenty of delusions left. She still believes you are coming back. She still waits for the phone to ring in the middle of the night, for the letters that never come. She’s still waiting for you to realize that life without her must be as empty as she is without you. You’re still inside her. She hasn’t been able to shake that.

The Initial Encounter
I barely noticed you. You were flapping around the party, trying to get people to pay attention to you. You’d already spoken to me three times. I was having a hard time remembering your name as you approached me for the fourth time. I plastered a smile of greeting on my face and searched my brain for a memory of something you’d said in the last couple of hours.

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