The pretty one

"It's not a pretty world, Papa."
"I've noticed," my father said softly.

-- Chaim Potok, My Name Is Asher Lev

Plastic skulls 8-9-13

"Is this the first time in your life you haven't looked pretty?" I say.

"It must be. The sensation's completely new.

How have you managed it all these years?" he asks.

-- Suzanne Collins, Catching Fire

"What's the use of looking nice, 

when no one sees me but those cross midgets, 

and no one cares whether I'm pretty or not?"

-- Louisa May Alcott, Little Women

"They're brainless girls, otherwise they wouldn't be seen dead here."

-- Markus Zusak, Fighting Ruben Wolfe

Naked Barbies in mustaches!

“Different though the sexes are, they inter-mix. 

In every human being a vacillation from one sex to the other takes place, 

and often it is only the clothes that keep the male or female likeness, 

while underneath the sex is the very opposite of what it is above.” 

-- Virginia Woolf

Naked Barbies in mustaches 6-1-13

“I have not lived as a woman. I have lived as a man. 

I've just done what I damn well wanted to, and I've made enough money to support myself, 

and ain't afraid of being alone.” 

-- Katharine Hepburn 

"The wounded child inside many females is a girl who was taught from early childhood 

that she must become something other than herself, 

deny her true feelings, in order to attract and please others.”

-- Bell Hooks, All About Love: New Visions 

In today's edition of Helpful Advice from an Exhausted Insomniac's Addled, Sleep-Deprived Brain ...

Sometimes you've gotta do what you've gotta do just to keep breathing.

If gluing silicone mustaches on naked thrift store Barbies helps to get you through a day without totally losing your shit, then for fuck's sake, please glue silicone mustaches on naked thrift store Barbies.

Because the way I see it, gluing silicone mustaches on naked thrift store Barbies doesn't hurt anybody. It might keep you from hurting yourself. And it's fun for the Barbies!

Here at A Face A Day, that's what we call a "win-win-win".

So if you feel like you might be about to lose your shit, STOP!
Be a win-win-winner, like me, and glue silicone mustaches on naked thrift store Barbies instead!

Next time on Helpful Advice from an Exhausted Insomniac's Addled, Sleep-Deprived Brain, I'll discuss some burning insomniac questions, like "Who the fuck is going to eat all of these cookies?" and "3 a.m. Dilemma: Ironing or pumping iron?"

Pin up girl

“This thief was an artist of theft. 

Other thieves merely stole everything that was not nailed down, 

but this thief stole the nails as well.”

                     

                                                                                                -- Terry Pratchett, Sourcery

"Pin up girl" collage 5-3-13

When I was born, they looked at me and said
what a good boy, what a smart boy, what a strong boy.
And when you were born, they looked at you and said,
what a good girl, what a smart girl, what a pretty girl.

We've got these chains that hang around our necks,
people want to strangle us with them before we take our first breath.
Afraid of change, afraid of staying the same,
when temptation calls, we just look away.

 -- Barenaked Ladies, "What a Good Boy"

Because they ...

"Once conform, once do what other people do because they do it,

and a lethargy steals over all the final nerves and faculties of the soul.

She becomes all outer show and inward emptiness; dull, callous and indifferent."

                                                                                                               

                                                                                                  -- Virginia Woolf

Barbie head with cutout eyes and mouth 3-30-13

You never know when you meet someone
Will she be the one?
You never know and I wonder to myself
I wonder to myself
Are you beautiful?
Are you beautiful on the inside?
On the inside?
Are you beautiful?
Are you beautiful on the inside?
On the inside?

                                                      -- Chris Pierce, "Are You Beautiful"  (from the movie Crash)

Barbie head with cutout eyes, mouth (2) 3-30-13

Two-faced

"If you're gonna be two-faced, at least make one of them pretty."

                                                                   -- Marilyn Monroe

Self portrait 3-26-13

The way you make me feel

"Who cares about pretty?

I'm going for noticeable."

                                                                           -- Veronica Roth, Divergent

 

Thrift store doll and Barbies 3-24-13

 

Big bag 'o Barbies

"Do you think I'm wonderful?" she asked him one day as they leaned against the trunk of a petrified maple.

"No," he said.

"Why?"

"Because so many girls are wonderful. I imagine hundreds of men have called their loves wonderful today, and it's only noon. You couldn't be something that hundreds of others are."

-- Jonathan Safran Foer, Everything Is Illuminated

 

Thrift store Barbies 3-22-13

I scored an unexpected windfall at the thrift store when I bought a bag of seven Barbie dolls for $2.99. It was mere minutes before the store closed, and yet, somehow, nobody had snatched up this lucky find.

I'm no math wiz, but at $2.99 plus tax, they come out to roughly 44 cents apiece. Of course, new Barbies come with clothes. Mine are all buck naked.

I didn't have my own Barbies when I was little. My sisters had them. Although I did have a Ken. He was a "mod-style" Ken, (right) with bushy long-ish hair and a stick-on beard, sideburns and mustache. (I scissored his mod-style hair into a buzz cut and stuck the facial hair on myself -- big surprise).

I preferred playing out back in the dirt with my "Best of the West" action figures. I had an Indian chief, an outlaw cowboy clad in all-black, with guns and a quick draw arm, and Johnny and Josie West, a couple of horses and a Jeep (not pink -- a rugged, copper-colored, real Jeep).

Thrift store Barbies (2) 3-22-13

I read a very insightful essay recently, about the psychology of girls and their Barbies. Here is an excerpt:


"In the past few decades quite a few people have suggested–citing most often the offense of impossible proportions–that Barbie dolls teach young girls to hate themselves. But the opposite may be true. British researchers recently found that girls between the ages of seven and eleven harbor surprisingly strong feelings of dislike for their Barbie dolls, with no other toy or brand name inspiring such a negative response from the children. The dolls “provoked rejection, hatred, and violence” and many girls preferred Barbie torture–by cutting, burning, decapitation, or microwaving–over other ways of playing with the doll. Reasons that the girls hated their Barbies included, somewhat poetically, the fact that they were “plastic.” The researchers also noted that the girls never spoke of one single, special Barbie, but tended to talk about having a box full of anonymous Barbies. “On a deeper level Barbie has become inanimate,” one of the researchers remarked. “She has lost any individual warmth that she might have possessed if she were perceived as a singular person. This may go some way towards explaining the violence and torture.” -- Eula Biss, "Relations"

If you want to read all of Eula Biss' essay (I recommend it), you can find it here: http://www.identitytheory.com/eula-biss-relations/

If you don't want to read it, that's fine. Do whatever you want. 

I will be out back torturing my new Barbies.

I feel pretty ...

I don't trust self-portrait artists who only go in front of the camera on "good" days. Good hair, good skin, good attitude. Truly getting at the self in self-portraits means the whole self in all its dark corners. The good. The bad. The ugly. Once in a blue moon I do feel pretty in the literal sense of the word. Other times I feel pretty more along the lines of pretty angry, pretty exhausted, pretty confused, pretty frustrated, pretty sad, pretty ugly, pretty pissed, pretty happy, pretty excited, pretty curious, pretty desperate, pretty crazy, pretty clever, pretty lonely. The list goes on. So if you're coming along with me for this 365 day ride, just know that it ain't always gonna be pretty.

Self portrait 1-4-13