Hangover

I was going to do a humblebrag and tell you that I wore an outfit that I kinda sorta liked yesterday, but I’ve decided to outright brag: I had an amazing wardrobe day yesterday.

I was going to be coy and not tell you about it, but I’ve decided to spill: a turquoise linen shift, indigo cropped cardi, lime green ponyskin ballet flats, orange and tan leather bag. Topped off with a heavy tan leather belt, a soft pink-and-indigo cotton scarf, and a couple of carats of diamond studs (real, I don’t fake it). It went off.

I was going to write something positive and uplifting and philosophical, but I’ve decided to just be honest: I have the worst wardrobe hangover in the history of wardrobe hangovers.

If you don’t know what a wardrobe hangover is, then LUCKY YOU, because they are awful, and there’s no vegemite-toast-and-a-big-mug-of-coffee cure. A wardrobe hangover occurs when you find yourself, crushingly, returned to the realities of having a limited wardrobe after flying a little too close to the sun of sartorial perfection. It’s an awful feeling, similar to how Lucy felt in C.S. Lewis’s The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, when she opened the wardrobe doors expecting to show Peter, Susan and Edmund the magic land of Narnia, but instead revealed a pile of old coats.

Sister, I feel your pain. Because yesterday, when I opened my wardrobe, all was magical, enchanted, and glistening, and today, it was so much sham and drudgery.

The worst thing about a wardrobe hangover is that whatever you wear, even if it’s objectively decent or even rather lovely, will be coloured by the deep shadows of your amazing wardrobe day.

Today, when I awoke in the grips of my wardrobe hangover, I put on my most soothing outfit (geometric-print pleated skirt, black wool long sleeved top, black cardigan, tan suede ballet flats, black belt, lucky mermaid broach, pink and red scarf) and hoped for the best. Surely, I could stave off the worst of my wardrobe hangover by placating my raw nerves with the simple and the good?

No, I could not.

OF CORUSE the pleats of my skirt were an exercise in arse aggrandisement. OF COURSE my top had a million little pills that no amount of lint-rolling could remove. OF COURSE my cardigan fell at the wrong point and obscured my waist, my belt was either too tight, too loose, too high, too low - never just right - my lucky mermaid pin sat bizarrely on my left boob, and my shoes made weird slapping noises when I walked.

The only solution was to rip the whole sorry mess off as soon as I walked through the door this evening, mope about my apartment in leggings and an old tee shirt of my brother’s, and write about it, in the hope of shaking off the last of my wardrobe hangover.

After all, I have to get dressed again tomorrow, and who knows what surprises my wardrobe might hold for me?

Bad Face Incidents (Brow Jobs Make it Better)

Having a Bad Face Incident? Spots, wrinkles, redness, dryness, freckles in weird places, funky dark under eye circles, bags, sags, itches, make up that decides to turn on you for no apparent reason?

I hear you.

Bad Face Incidents happen. To everybody. It’s a part of being human. Whilst it’s unlikely that you’ll have the full gamut listed above all at once (if you do, you poor thing, here’s a digital cuddle), I’d wager the next six months’ pay that not one of you reading this post can say that you haven’t had at least one of the above problems in the last twelve months. That’s ladies AND gentlemen, because I know blokes get Bad Face Incidents, too, even if they appear to shrug them off more easily than women.

What I know to be true is that until such time as the miracle cream/pill/product is invented, that wipes out spots/wrinkles/redness/freckles/cold sores et al, we’re all going to be in the Bad Face Incident boat at one point or another. Cold comfort, but comfort nonetheless, to know that it’s as much of a certainty as death and taxes that most humans will wake up, look in the mirror while brushing their teeth, and baulk.

So what can you do when you find yourself facing a Bad Face Incident? There are certainly things to address the specific concerns you have that, to a greater of lesser degree, are largely dependant on your budget, willingness to change your lifestyle (goodbye, Benson and Hedges, the bells of our love will ring in my heart 4 evah) and your stance on botulism as a suitable injectable (for the record, I’m undecided on that one, let’s have a chat about it after my next milestone birthday). Most of the remedies to Bad Face Incidents, though, take a little time to bear fruit. This isn’t helpful when you are mid-baulk, with your toothbrush lolling about your gaping-in-surprise mouth, and wondering how you are going to face the day without a paper bag.

While it’s not going to solve your wrinkles, your itches, your cold sores or your under eye circles, I do have something simple to suggest that will make you look infinitely better, irrespective of the particular Bad Face Incident that you have the misfortune of living through. I’m going to tell you, right now, because if you are having a Bad Face Incident, there’s no time to be tardy.

You need to grab a pair of tweezers, set yourself in front of a well lit mirror, and pluck your eyebrows. You too, boys.

The beauty of a good brow job is that no one will notice WHAT you did, but everyone will notice that you did something that makes you look better. Here’s why.

A good brow job will open up your eye area, making you look instantly more awake and younger. If you ARE younger, it will make you look FRESHER, which is also a good thing, particularly if you are so very, very unfresh as a result of adopting a youthful attitude to drinking, ciggies, and late nights cleaning up vom (belonging to you and, worse, to others) at house parties. This is especially true if your brows are like the Spice Girls song, and take ‘Two Become One’ as a directive. Gentlemen, this is a move your brows seem particularly fond of, so I would recommend starting in the middle of your brow and working outwards until there are two distinct hairy places as opposed to one. Feeling better already, aren’t we lads?

A good brow job will make your eyes the focal point of your face. Which means that when people look at you, they won’t be looking at your spots/wonky lippie/sprouting mole/as yet unspecified bad face incident. No, sirs et madams, they will be looking into your eyes, deep into your eyes, entranced by the beauty that they no doubt will find there. Because, if you haven’t noticed already, everybody has absolutely beautiful eyes, in one way or another. Go on, have a look. Don’t stare (it’s rude) but next time you encounter a real live person, take a peep at their peepers. See? Beauty. Right there. Even if their owners were otherwise totesies mingsies (Totally minging. I’ve been watching Bondi Hipsters on YouTube, and have been inadvertently hipsterising my vocab all week. Soz). Let’s accentuate what’s no doubt lovely about you with some lovely brows. Ming mitigated.

A good brow job will make your face so much more expressive. Back in the day when I used to be a Flirty Florence (many, many, many birthdays ago), the final arrow in my cupid’s bow was a quick flick of my meticulous brow, and I was, most of the time, In. Likewise, I was (and still am) a sucker for a cocked brow. Beyond flirting, though, a good brow job will allow your quirky/cute/serious/sincere/downright hilarious facial expressions to show – never a bad thing, provided you can modulate your face for the appropriate social setting. I once got told off by a student for wincing whenever he spoke in tutorial. Probably would have been good, in that situation, to have a less expressive face. Let’s revise my previous statement, then, to it is ALMOST never a bad thing to allow your facial expressions to show. (Although, having great brows certainly helped me pull a convincing Face of Contrition during the subsequent conversation. Perhaps greater facial expressivity granted by a good brow job is a double edged sword. Best wield it wisely).

Finally, and most importantly, a good brow job, for the above reasons, will make you FEEL fifty million per cent better about your face. Which, as we all know, is the real crux of the bad face incident – it’s about how you feel about your face, not as much about that wrinkle or that pimple that shouldn’t be there. So when that morning I described at the beginning of this post happens (and it will happen), and you find yourself confronted with a Bad Face Incident, remember two very important things: first, you are not alone, and second, grab those tweezers and get that swaggah back.

Cups Runneth Over.

I feel bad filing this post under the ‘recipe’ tag, because it isn’t. But, after evangelizing about the merits of oven roasted ‘shrooms, and happily discovering a high quality supplier of particularly awesome ‘shrooms at my local shops, I feel compelled to share my recipe, or, borrowing a Nigellaism, my ‘enthusiastic suggestion’ for preparing mushrooms.

(As an aside, I’ve recently been reading Nigella’s ‘How to Eat’ and ‘How to Be A Domestic Goddess’ not for the recipes, but for the writing. I love her stories, and I love the warmth that emanates from her prose. Give me Nigella over some of the more lauded novelists of our generation any day of the week!).

To begin your ‘shrooming, preheat your oven to 200 degrees. You don’t really need to preheat, and, as I often make these as a super fast lunch or dinner, I often don’t have time to, but it makes good sense to get your oven heating whilst you undertake the two minutes of preparation required.
Place your mushrooms, cup side up, on a baking-paper lined tray. I would allow about 5 palm-sized mushrooms per person, but then I tend to err on the side of gluttony so you may want to revise downwards. You should also consider size when selecting your ‘shrooms at the grocery store – you want mushrooms that have enough of a cup to catch the roasting juices, so buttons and the more exotic varieties are probably out. I usually stick to medium-large field mushrooms, which seem to be the tastiest.

Remove the stem from each of your mushrooms, being sure to keep the cup intact. Now it’s time to get creative. The basic rule here is that you need salt, pepper, and a little bit of fat – butter or olive oil – to give you that rich, delicious juice. However, if you are feeling fancy and have a good supply of fresh herbs to raid, pick a couple of the following and add them to the cups along with you basic seasoning: garlic, thyme, rosemary, sage, paprika, chilli, oregano, anchovies, capers.

Put the tray of ‘shrooms in the oven, and leave them for ten minutes. I find that cooking time varies wildly with these, depending on the size and freshness of your ‘shrooms, the amount of time your oven had been preheating, and the planets rotating through your sun sign (kidding). Basically, though, what you want to see, when you open the oven door, is a wrinkly brown mushroom with a pool of dark, richly scented juice in the cup. The visual, I’ll admit, is not appealing, but it’s honest. Your ‘shrooms will, and ought to, look manky at this stage.

At this point, you can proceed to the eating, but, if you are feeling really really fancy, or you’re just showing off, add some cheese (feta, mozzarella, and parmesan are favorites) and give your ‘shrroms another 2-3 minutes so your cheese begins to bubble.

Serve with a tossed together salad, or some wilted greens, and polenta or bread to soak up the juices. So now you know – you’re only ever 20 minutes, tops, away from complete culinary satisfaction. And if that isn’t a comfort in these troubled times, I don’t know what is.

Note to Self

Dear Peggy,

When you are not feeling up to tip-top standard, and have a lot of things to do, DON'T try for wardrobe brilliance.

Because, if you spend the better part of an hour trying on, taking off, trying on again with a differnet cardigain, takign off again in a huff, you will not only miss three buses, you will be forced to come home to a room covered in fashion excriment. Complete with rejects, naked coathangers, discarded shoes, and a herniated wardrobe. (There were supposed to be pictures this week, but, unfortunately, my camera is not working - maybe it was offended?)

Instead, put on the most comfotable, most easy, and most black outfit of all (Johnny Cash, who faced his share of days that weren't at tip top standard, was onto something).

You might not get complimented. You might not get looked at. But at least you will get to work on time.

Which will mean you can come home early for a cup of tea and some of Jackie O's biography before heading out to job number two.

Cheers and lotsalove,

Peggy x