kiss and make up

"beauty fades. brains are forever." - judge judy

when she passed me in the lobby of our building, i had to do a double-take just to make sure that i wasn't imagining things. "i've seen that woman before," i mumbled to myself. but where? where had i seen her before? the hair seemed familiar. the clothing seemed familiar. the jewellery seemed familiar. yet it was the shoes that seemed most familiar of all. those four-inch black-and-white patent leather pumps. shoes like those tend to stand out in a building filled mainly with female octogenarians sporting hush puppies and support socks. (and don't talk to me about support socks, kid.)

but what about the face? it was the face that i just couldn't place. i mean, her face did look familiar, not unlike the shoes and the jewellery and the clothing and the hair. though it wasn't the face that i normally associated with all of those accoutrements. at least not in the same configuration that appeared to me in the lobby of our building that day.

and then it hit me. why, of course. how could i not have recognized her? it was my upstairs neighbour. the one who lives directly above my unit. the one with the two teenage sons who certainly gave my daughter and me quite the scare last year when they nearly clobbered us with a pair of water balloons dropped from their balcony. the one with the live-in boyfriend who always seems to be recovering from a perpetual sunburn, even in the deepest throes of winter. and the one with whom i've shared an elevator ride on at least a dozen or so occasions since she and her brood sailed into the building a few years back. hell, i've even exchanged pleasantries with the woman on the few rare occasions when i felt like being social during said elevator trips.

but why didn't i recognize my neighbour that day? well, and i will try to be kind here, i didn't recognize my neighbour that day because she wasn't wearing her face. and by her face, of course, i am referring to her customary mask of makeup. the dollops and dollops of foundation and blush and mascara and eyeshadow and eyeliner and lipstick and lip gloss and lip balm that practically drips from her middle-aged mug whenever i run into her.

so?

so how come some folks devote so much time and money and energy trying to disguise their true appearance?

after all, we can't hide our real faces forever.

"i want to be a guy, but i want to wear a lot of makeup.” - gwen stefani

at the risk of sounding repetitive, sometimes an apple is just an apple