I am barely holding it together for obvious reasons. #FuckKavanaugh
So I am just going to share a thing I did this weekend that made me happy. #FuckKavanaugh
It involved a mask. #FuckKavanaugh
First I will share a little story. Three years ago coming back from Europe we had a layover in Heathrow or somewhere, and I was desperately searching for a little gift to bring back for Miyako. She’s always been hard to buy for. I stumbled upon some fancy-looking face masks at about $15 a pop. Normally I’d never spend that on a face mask, but it was a gift. And since I wasn’t about to get my 16 year old (at the time) daughter a $15 European face mask and not get one for myself, I picked up two. #FuckKavanaugh
I came home, used it, and fell in love. It was astounding. My skin was transformed. But this was when I was just dipping my toe into the world of skin care, and I promptly forgot the name of the company and the whole experience. #FuckKavanaugh
But in recent months I’ve been getting seriously back into masking. And that mask from years back started niggling at me. What was it? #FuckKavanaugh
And then, randomly, about two weeks ago, thanks to the creepy magic of the Internet, a mask popped up in front of my eyeballs online, and I thought…”wait… wait… is that… that mask???” #FuckKavanaugh
And I clicked through, and lo, it was! Before my eyes, at long last, was the StarSkin Close-Up Firming Bio Cellulose Face Mask #FuckKavanaugh
That was the brand: StarSkin. And for whatever reason, you can’t find that brand just… around. It’s at European airport Duty-Free shops, and at Barneys, and such-like fancy locales. #FuckKavanaugh
Normally I’d never buy something so… obscure. But because I had seen the results, I was ready to check it out and dig deeper. With my newfound background in all things skincare, I went into the website and really spent some time. I read about the company and I looked at all the products. And I decided, since it was just about my birthday, to spring for a set of items. I got my old friend the Close-Up, and some eye masks. And I also got StarSkin’s current signature product, the StarSkin Pro Micro-Filler Mask Pack ($35). #FuckKavanaugh
And so, on Sunday, in the midst of my grief and rage and fury and despair, I used my new $35 mask. #FuckKavanaugh
And…. wow…. what can I say. The results were just… wow. My skin was glowing. And lifted. And just… really… wow. #FuckKavanaugh
Thanks to Facebook today I encountered this picture of myself from two years ago. If you want to see the difference that regular skin care can make, well, here it is. And this is even in the post-Trump apocalypse #FuckKavanaugh
I am in no way urging you, my readers, to spend $35 on a face mask. I know that is not possible or responsible for many of you in our academic economy. #FuckKavanaugh
I will mention, though, that you can get the Close Up Firming Mask for $10 from the website. And of course my home-away-from-home TJ Maxx continues to have endless effective K-Beauty masks for $5.99 for a box of 5. #FuckKavanaugh
I share this story just to say that sometimes a break is necessary. #FuckKavanaugh
For me, my breaks are skin care (and dancing with my dance community, and shopping for new bargain makeup products and then trying them out). If there is something that gives you joy, please do it.
Oh, and FUCK KAVANAUGH, TRUMP, THE GOP, AND EVERY SINGLE PERSON WHO COULD NOT BRING THEMSELVES TO VOTE FOR THE WOMAN WHO WARNED US EXACTLY – EXACTLY – WHAT WAS AT STAKE.
Dr. Kelsky,
I am embarking on an opportunity to instruct in my field at a University. I have had a few sparse, formal teaching engagements and in short, they whet my proverbial whistle for teaching. Unfortunately, having been in and around the military for the last 25 years, geographic stability is hard, if not impossible, to come by. Because of this, securing footholds into teaching has been challenging to say the least. When I learned of this recent opportunity, by way of an invitation to a campus visit after my initial interview, I was thrilled. But soon, anxieties set in. I feared that I might be entering into something that appears less and less like our higher educational system and more and more like a breeding ground for far-left thinking, self-anointed, post-modernistic intellectuals.
Never-the-less, I went to Youtube to see if there was any guidance for a nubile, entering into what can be a very intimidating environment. I saw a webinar you hosted and it looked like just what I needed. I opened up another window and navigated to your blog so that I could follow it (or reference it) as you were speaking and as I was taking notes.
I had made it past a few tired, toadying “Obama” references and was hanging in there. I stopped watching the webinar and after a few clicks on your blog I am left sitting here, saddened, a bit dejected, and wondering if I want any part of this. I keep looking up at the bolded, red #fuckkavanaugh tags. Quite honestly, I am disappointed, tremendously. (I’ll hazard a guess that if you’re even reading this you’re thinking “I don’t care”) More importantly I couldn’t help but think, “Shouldn’t someone of her pedigree be better than that?”
Listening to you speak, it’s clear to me that you are in complete command of the English Language (and probably several others). You’re a well-credentialed subject-matter-expert in your field, successful, and engaging. I wish so much that I could have just learned from you and from your vast experience – through your webinar and your blog – and not been prosyletized into yet one more “intellectual’s” political worship. I don’t care if you’re a liberal or a Democrat. What you believe and hold dear are, by definition, yours. They’re personal and sacred to you. I just wish you would have kept them that way.
When I was younger, I revered Professors. They were bastions of learning, of traditions, of respect and civility. Culture and the rites help to define us a civilization and as authentic human beings, higher creatures. The current vogue of profanity, applauded outbursts, haranguing, fabricated “outrage” and “anger”, and movements, would all be laughable to me if it weren’t so worrisome and depressing.
You seem like someone who has so much to offer but for me, and again you probably don’t care, I feel as though this is one more piece of evidence that my fears are well-founded. I wish you well and hope you can come to see that political polarization limits your ability to share all the wonderful things that you have acquired and experienced with wider and, ironically, more diverse audience [since diversity is such a post-modernistic sacred cow].
Respectfully . . .