Teachability

I can learn new things.

I can.

But dude, sometimes I am my own worst enemy.

I am afraid that I will be “inconvenienced” due to inclement weather on Sunday.

Bah.

Take the train, darlin’.

I have the opportunity to assist a make up artist on a music video that is being shot in San Francisco this Sunday.

I was super excited and flattered to be invited to do so, then nervous, then why would she ask me?

Duh.

Because I show up for work all the time with Betty Page eyes and full blush on.

I wear makeup and I obviously have looked into doing it before as a career move when I was in the middle of making a shift away from nannying.

I investigated Aveda.

I went to Blush School of Makeup.

Both schools, said, yes, please, come right on in.

Both schools asked for a pretty steep tuition.

“You don’t need a licence to do makeup,” she told me, “you do if you are doing hair or esthetician work, but not make up.”

“Do you have any experience working on people?” She inquired.

“Helped one friend with makeup for her wedding and what I do every year at Burning Man,” I said.

I have put make up on folks, but not professionally.

Then again, it’s not like I was tapped to be the head make up artist, I was asked by the head make up artist to lend a hand, to be on set, to meet people, to see how it works, to watch from the process and learn.

That’s really how I learned what little I do know about makeup, from being the model of a friend of mine who went through the Blush program.  I paid attention, I listened to what his instructors were saying, I learned new stuff.

Then I just got used to putting make up on myself.

I still would like to be professionally made up sometime, that would be fun.

I am going to learn some new things, meet some new people, and hey, get to be on the set of a music video?

What?

I will take the train if it’s raining and I don’t want to be on my bicycle.

It’s not a paid gig, it’s more like an apprenticeship and considering how much courses to learn make up do cost, it’s a pretty awesome thing to get to be involved with.

It’s another thing I get to learn how to do.

There is so much to learn.

I don’t believe that I will ever master any of them, but I also get to find out what I like.  And from just a pure girly sort of stand point, I do like make up.

I never wore it in high school or in college.

I remember my first serious boyfriend rather poo poo’ed it.

Of course he was smoking pot, sporting t-shirts with Onion slogans on them (Fuck you, you fucking fuck was great for grocery shopping at Woodman’s) and plaid flannels, Van’s for skateboarding and playing frisbee golf and smoking more pot and drinking craft beer.

I am surprised he was ok with me shaving.

I remember once his dad made some comment about how I was high maintenance and it pissed me right the fuck off.

High maintenance?

I don’t wear mascara.

How can I be high maintenance?

He probably meant my personality.

But I did begin to wear a little something now and then to compliment the ever-present pot of Rachel Perry Lip Lovers that was always in my front right pocket.

I loved that stuff.

Still, to this day, I have not found an adequate replacement.

I started to learn how to put on make up in my thirties.

I started with lipstick.

I carry approximately seven to eight of them in my makeup bag.

I can do without the mascara, blush, powder, eye makeup, but don’t take away my lip gloss man.

“I couldn’t stop staring at your mouth,” she said to me one night after a get together, “it’s so, so, uh, glossy, what do you use?”

I love lip gloss.

Not too sticky though.

I am not a fan of the sticky gloss.

My hair gets caught in it, my lips feel funny, and it’s not good for kissing.

I like a creamy lip gloss that has high shine and if it glitters excellent.

If not, I make something happen.

No body is going to read this post, it’s all about lip gloss.

Bahahahaha.

I could briefly write about glitter.

Like the helmet I am going to get to accompany my Vespa.

Oh, don’t worry, I will make sure it is DOT approved.

I am not an idiot.

I just glitter like one.

Another new thing to learn and experience, the scooter thing, that is.

Two weeks from today at approximately this time I will be wrapping up my first of three days of motorcycle safety class.

Seems a bit surreal that all the sudden it’s happening.

But that’s how things happen.

Just out of the blue.

Yet, I know that a lot of work had to preface this decision.

I was thinking as I cautiously navigated my way home tonight, it was starting to rain on the way back, that I have really in a short period of time come a very long way.

I was completely broke when I landed at SFO in May.

I mean broke.

I had ten dollars in my wallet.

Nine months later I am living in a nice studio that is fully furnished with full-time work, having paid off the debt to Barnaby, travelled once to Florida, gone to Burning Man, re-established myself, and my wardrobe, have a smidge of money in savings toward a new laptop, am fed, housed, and taken care of.

And I am getting a scooter.

How amazing.

I really do show up and do the work.

I don’t always let myself see how willing I am to try to do.

To be taught.

Even when I get scared to show up and fumble around.

I don’t have to be perfect on Sunday.

I just need to show up.

Rain or shine.

I will be there.

I get to be of service and learn.

Not a bad way to spend a Sunday.

Plus, come on, it’s on a music video shoot!

Good times.

Now What?

Blush is out.  Nice facility.  But it is a private institution and thus cannot receive federal financial aid.  The cost of tuition-$8,600.  I don’t have that kind of cheddar.  Aveda appears to be out as well.  I cannot cover the costs of tuition without additional loan monies, which I don’t have.

If I did, I would probably be flying to Paris right now.

I don’t know what to do.

In the midst of this, I had an interview last night with a very small, very unique, very new business in the city that I believe I could really help.  I love the product, the location rocks, and the money is nada.

I would have to move out of my apartment.  I think I’m going to have to move out of my apartment anyhow.  Go back to living with room mates.  Live on shoe string.  But, I would be making a distinct difference in the company infrastructure and getting in on the ground floor of something that could really go places.

The person I interviewed with really wants me–it is nice to be wanted, it is nice to have my skill set acknowledged and sought after.  Now he’s pitching to the owner.  If I got the position I would start November 1st.  The day my contract with my current families ends.  I would only work 40 hours a week.  That in and of itself would be refreshing.  I have worked 50 hours a week for the last year and my previous nanny position was 45 hours weekly.

Though, truth be told, I don’t believe that there were many weeks where I actually was there for every hour of those 45 to 50.  However, the constraints of knowing that I was accountable for those hours made it feel like I worked every one of them.

And I had a quiet, sneaky, hey where did you come from thought as I was sitting in the upstairs office talking with the General Manager of the company, what if I took those extra ten hours and I wrote during them?

Shut, the fuck up.

Ah, excuse me, young lady, aren’t you trying to go to school for a make up career?

Yes, I am, and I appear to be getting blocked.

Remember bless it or block it?  Well, I am feeling totally blocked.  I got the denial letters in official forms today from Sallie Mae and Patelco stating the obvious due to my bankruptcy and various other nefarious things on my credit report (all of which have been cleared up, thank you very much) I am ineligible for any kind of financial assistance from them.

Unless I get a high interest rate credit card and pay for school that way, I don’t really have any options.  And frankly, that’s just not an option.

On the bright side, my credit rating is higher than I thought it was.

Yip-fucking-ee.

But, what if I, humor me now, change my mind, yet again, and help run this business and have fun at my job and just be a worker amongst workers and I write.  Not just my blog and not just my artist pages, but I also build in that additional hour to my craft.  I could work on the second draft to The Iowa Waltz.  I could perhaps land some free-lance work.  I could try being a writer.  I could get the formatting taken care of for Baby Girl and get it up on Smash Words.

Instead of talking about it and running away from it, I could actively do it.

John Ater has told me time and again that I don’t need a Masters to write.  Maybe the idea of going to make up school was put in my head to help me facilitate removing myself from being a nanny–remember it was my conversation with K’s family about going to school that gave them the go ahead to put her into pre-school a year early.

I mean, I got jobs nannying if I want them.  I have recommendations coming out the whoo ha.  I just don’t think I can do it anymore.

No, I know I can’t do it anymore.

What if I go small to go big?

I hate, hate, hate, hate this.  It feels so similar to everything else I have done–maybe I’ll be a veterinarian, a paralegal, a nanny, a make up artist, maybe, maybe, maybe, ad infinitum.  I see a pattern, do you?

What if I practise having faith that I’m supposed to publish and find ways to do this.  I hate eating humble pie as well–although it is the only pie I allow myself to eat anymore.

To be back again at square one and see the same thing staring me in the face: “psst, hey you, yeah, you, sitting at your keyboard with stacks of notebooks every where and pots of pens and piles of paper and manilla envelopes and stamps and fancy paper clips from Italy, you look an awful lot like a writer, you know”?

Maybe you it’s time you acknowledge and pursue.

I am a tool and I feel like I am being used like one.

John Ater sent me the proof for the photos we took.  There’s one that popped right out and I can see it’s the cover.  I can see the sadness and the anxiety and the fear in that photo–maybe I got to go through this week of absolute craziness to get to that photo–the photo that will be crafted into the cover for my first book.

Hey, what if this is the moment I have been waiting for all my life?

God damn it.

And all I really have is this at the end of the day, what is the next action in front of me?

Back to the simple. Go do the dishes because I don’t even know if I got this job.  I may be whistling in the dark.  But I took action and went and interviewed and I updated my resume and references and sent them to the General Manager as he requested, before I wrote my blog tonight, to make it pertinent to the job being applied to.  I took action, the results are not mine and they never have been.

I took action around school, too.  I explored, I researched, I interviewed, I toured, I applied.  I don’t have any answers or ideas left.  I have the ego of a tiny squashed gnat.

Anybody need a room-mate?

Fuck.

Fuck, fuck, fuckity, fuck, fuck, fuck.

And, yes, you can quote me on that.

Slight Change Of Direction

I think.

I reserve the right to change my mind at any time.  Just as long as I follow through with action and not thinking about it.

I am not certain, but I may go to a different school than Aveda, and I suppose I don’t have to be certain right now, in this moment.  I can just be oh, I don’t know, present in this moment.

Which really should not be too hard as my fucking cat is kneading my leg so hard she’s sinking her claws into my leg.

Jesus fuck.

You know, I swear a lot, don’t I?

So, fucking what.

Ahem.

Well, anyway, here’s some more fun money news–that’s right another, institution of financial lending turned me down today.  Thanks for shutting the door on me Patelco.  I had a mere five minutes, perhaps even as little as three, of disappointment and irritation.  Then, it went away and was replaced by, alright, so now what?  I also had the thought of, “bless it or block it” and I think I’m getting the idea that I’m being blocked around this.

When this is happening I am in the park, at Mission Creek with the lady bugs and I literally look up at the sky and say, what ever you want, God.  Just show me the way.  I did not even bother to look around.   I may have startled the gentleman reading the morning paper on the bench five feet away, but he did not say anything to me and I just pretended I had not noticed him. Until we walked past and he smiled and gave a grandfatherly like wink to me.

Oops.

But, you know, maybe it was for the best.  Maybe it’s time to look at another program.  Maybe I should not just throw my hat and my non-existent money at Aveda.  I decided today to check out Blush Make Up School on Market St. (www.blushschoolofmakeup.com) and I really liked the looks of the program.

I had a friend that attended years ago, I placed a phone call to him to pick his brain.  Then I called the school up and talked to the head of their admissions department.  He asked me some very specific questions about what I was looking for as I mentioned to him that I had applied to Aveda but was having some thoughts about exploring all my options.

After answering those questions and listening to what he had to say about the school and the curriculum they offer, I made the decision to go in and take a tour and find out more information.  I have a tour scheduled for this Thursday. The program that I am most interested in is the Master’s Make Up program.

It would be a five month program if I went full-time or a seven month program if I go part-time.  The tuition is still expensive, but $4,500 less than Aveda’s esthiology program.  And it’s focus is all on make up with maybe a little skin care tossed in there.  I would learn theater make up, cat walk and fashion make up, I would learn television and film make up, special f/x, wedding, and traditional photography.

This is more up my alley, I realized after a few minutes of listening to the director talk.  I want to work in fashion and entertainment.

Eek.  Who said that?

Yeah, that was me, the closet Vogue reader (and W and Elle and Nylon and French Vogue, shhhh…I actually have a magazine and book allowance in my spending plan, I love fashion magazines, my little addiction aside from lip balm and caffeine).  I want to do make up for famous people.

Or on famous people.

Or just on fabulous people.

Or just on people period.

Really, when I was completely honest with myself, yeah, I like the idea of doing skin care and spa work, but what really gets me excited is the idea of doing make up, of styling some one for a fashion shoot.  I fancy myself a bit of a Grace Coddington.  That is what I want to do.  And so what if it’s frivolous and frou frou.  And so what if I aspire to wear eclectic clothes to work and maybe even get a neck tattoo.

I can do that in fashion and not be looked at askance.  I also have a great rapport with people and I would be creatively expressing myself.

The tuition is steep, but with what I would receive from Federal Financial Aid I would not be as far in the hole as I would be with Aveda either.  It would only run me about $1,800 our of pocket versus $4,000.  That’s a huge chunk for some one who doesn’t know where they are going to work in three weeks.

I also had another talk with S’s mom today and let her know that I might be changing direction as I got turned down again for loans.  I told her about Blush and that I had a tour scheduled for Thursday, I may be able to help them help me out for a few more weeks.  I may not.  I don’t know for certain.  But I still plan on being done with the nanny by the end of this year.  That was what my God letter said, I would be done being a nanny by the end of this year.

Some thing else will be happening.

Of course, it is all in motion and I don’t know where it’s going, but I will let you in on a little secret, I don’t feel as insane about it as I was.  I don’t know if I have turned a corner, but I wasn’t in financial fear today.  I just went about my day and I enjoyed the fuck out of the sunshine.  Give it to me.

That could all change tomorrow, but that’s tomorrow and I am not there yet, so I choose to stay on this path and see where it leads.

I may still fall on my ass, but you know, so what.

It’s a damn cute ass.