The funny thing about trying on the six year old ten hour colorfast red lipstick that you bought for your senior prom, is that it pretty much does the same thing that it did when you tried it on six years ago - gradually flakes off off into itty-bitty pieces like Tetris pieces bound for your tonsils. However, the outer lip portion remains relatively true to its performance claims and will, in fact, come off in no less than ten hours (Despite the various types of abrasions and solutions you may apply to your lips). But God bless it, you are determined to have a 1950s red lip with your fedora-wearing, trench coat clad, photo journalist, retro throwback of a Halloween costume. So it is out into the chilly fall air of a Thursday night to Walgreens wearing nothing so glamourous in particular... and bright red lipstick. Where you have come to buy, what else, but more bright red lipstick.

Oh, the seeming frump-a-licious eccentricity of it all!

Eleanor Roosevelt once said "No one can make you feel inferior without your consent", a statement I feel holds a great deal of weight; self-fulfilling prophecy is a powerful thing. The moment you stop thinking of yourself as a victim, the moment you no longer are one. People can take you and people can leave you. They can hurt your feelings on purpose, they can hurt your feelings on accident. You can sit their and mull over the possible motives behind these incidents, be they committed in inadvertence or animosity, but really, it doesn't matter. People may seem to like/love/hate/abhor you -- whatever. Love them. Look out for their best interest even when they maybe aren't looking out for yours. To live your life in suspicion and mistrust is no way to live. If you keep throwing yourself pity parties, pretty soon you won't be able to see for the confetti. It's true that you may get your toes stepped on every now and then when you give people the benefit of the doubt but ultimately the rewards are much greater. Real contentment is not devoid of hurt but revels in the hope that goodness and truth is available to those that have the courage to find it.