cookoorikoo

red

with rosacea, i am always red. as a rule, i avoid wearing red. if my skin is flared up at all, i look like a cherry tomato. but i embrace the red lights of a bar or traffic. who needs airbrushing?

hidden ink

i have tattoos. i got my first when i was 18. i don't regret a single one.   but i'm jewish. i work at a synagogue. and tattoos aren't kosher. so, i cover them. because i love my job. and i got my tattoos for me - i know they're there, regardless of what i'm wearing. they may not be an imperfection but they are something i hide.

malaise-y

once or twice a year i overextend myself to the point of paralysis. and it always happens the same way. i'll start getting a cold. i'll have 8,000 things to do. and all i want to do is pull the covers over my head and stay there for weeks. unfortunately, that doesn't work.

have you seen this yet?

so, i posted my pic for the self portrait challenge yesterday with no commentary. my rosacea was flaring up a bit and i am notorious for avoiding cameras when i'm in the midst of a flare-up. there are entire sets of vacation pics with NO pictures of me. there are family events in which i do not exist. but i knew i had to take the pic - i just wasn't happy about it and didn't know what to say about it.

at the same time, this video is making the rounds. two friends emailed it to me. and then it showed up on pop candy. it is brilliant. and simple. and incredibly eye-opening. and well, even though my momma didn't raise me to be so concerned with my looks it hard not to be when this is what we're up against.

i loved the dove "tested on real curves ads" (that cause drichard roeper to make women everywhere loathe him by commenting that if he wanted to see chunky legs, he'd pick up a bucket of fried chicken.) i am devoted to dove shampoo. and after a visit to their website i do believe they kick ass. in a world where tara reid feels like she needs plastic surgery, nicole richie seems to have stopped eating altogether and there are pro-anorexic websites out there i think its increbly important for someone to stand up and say this isn't ok - its completely fucking up young women's sense of self.

i'm lucky - at least women my age or thereabouts had sassy magazine to balance out all the crap. what do teenage girls have now? cosmogirl. and this is not to say i have entirely healthy self esteem. let's say 9 days out of ten i'm comfortable in my skin, with my body. its a struggle sometimes. but at least i know that noone but paris hilton looks like paris hilton and that's not something realistic to aspire to.

sara ramirez on grey's anatomy however... big props to abc for having a strong hispanic woman who's body is blissfully normal and she's so comfortable with herself that she's willing to a) dance around like a fool in her undies and b) take mcsteamy to bed. now if only ellen pompeo would go out for a nice steak.

flare up

like a vampire

"...the side of yourself that you always try to hide..."
i have a difficult relationship with mirrors. i have since i was 19 and developed rosacea. at the time i was obsessed with mirrors, constantly worrying about how i looked. but as the rosacea got worse i stopped looking in mirrors, for fear of what i'd see. i developed the ability to check my hair without looking at my face, to apply my makeup with a compact so i could focus on one small part of my face at a time. i still do it to this day, unconsciously, despite my skin's vast improvement and a greater (although not total) comfort with being in my skin. its kind of ridiculous.

the ugly truth

"Look beyond the surface of your life, dig into your imperfect self and reveal it to us..."

i can't keep my studio clean. i say that i work better like this but no, i don't. i work best when i know where everything is, when i can actually see a work surface. currently i can't. and tidying is overwhelming. so, this room has become a metaphor for what's going on inside my little head. and it ain't pretty. not even a little.

self portrait tuesday

ok so someone else drew this of me. its not a self portrait. but if i could draw, this is how i would imagine myself. adorable, mischevious, and a brilliant detective. ok so maybe i made the detective part up.

self portrait tuesday

so if we're talking personal history, this picture is perfect. shawn & i are in rome and we were so happy. it was 2003. we'd just done our madcap run around the city following the path of the illuminati from the dan brown book, after travelling for almost two weeks. we'd eaten dinner, we'd drank a lot of wine, we were coming home the next day. we wandered into st. peter's square and sat down. we actually spent hours there that night, talking and laughing. its one of those pictures that can remind me exactly why i adore shawn - when it becomes not so obvious. and after having been together for 13 years, it happens.

self portrait tuesday

i adore this picture of myself, so it seemed the PERFECT choice for self portrait tuesday.

i'm not sure how old i was here. i was bald for a very long time. but i'm sitting in the kitchen of what was then my grandparent's house, and is now my parent's house. i think most of my favorite pictures were taken in this very same spot. but i'm wearing my grandpa's glasses, because even in diapers i knew he was the coolest. how freaking cute am i? seriously!?