Geisha Girl Image via WikipediaNo, I'm not going out on a date. I'm happily married. I am, however, going to Occupational Therapy.We started working on ADL's (Activities of Daily Living). I had gotten myself organized and made up a little table of symptoms, therapies, and improvements over time to give my therapists a better idea of what is going on without me taking hours of relating anecdotes pertaining to each little problem I have. I figure a good practioner will have an idea of what's important and what is just another symptom of the same basic problem.
One of my problems is wearing makeup. When I first entered the work world, I dutifully painted on makeup, eyeshadow, and mascara. I made a few attempts at eyeliner which were disastrous. I ended up with squiggles on my eyelids instead of nice rounded arcs. Eyeliner is supposed to emphasize the eye and I guess I did at the expense of dignity. I always ended up wiping off the damn stuff. However, apparently, I wasn't always too successful with wearing just lipstick and mascara either. But, I was successful enough at it to convince myself that I should try to go into the office wearing the stuff. Till one day, when one of my co-workers looked at me and said that I really wasn't used to wearing makeup. I don't think she was being kind; I think she was being rather catty. So, I stopped wearing the stuff except for a few times when I was going out. If I had a job interview or a really important social event, I would spend $30 to get myself professionally made up. There is no way I could count on putting on the makeup correctly.
No. I didn't have those sitting on the edge of the bathtub moments in high school. You know, what I mean. Those days when you sat and groomed yourself with the aid of your mother, older sister, or friend and learned how to give yourself the "in" look. Didn't happen. I believe my mother was handicapped as well. She didn't wear makeup herself. She also didn't think a lot of high school socialization was that important. You went to high school to get an education and not all this other stuff. So, makeup didn't matter. I tried a bit myself in high school; but, I was never too successful at it so I quit. Besides I was too disorganized to make it into my daily routine.
Image via WikipediaThis first time, I took in the makeup that gives me the most problems: mascara, eyeliner and lipstick. I am going to save foundation for another day. I wonder about whether I am spreading foundation evenly across my face. Eye shadow works OK for me as it is generally smudged. The only problem with eye shadow is making sure I apply it the same way for both eyes.
But today, it is apparently about putting on makeup that requires some sort of drawing. You've got to trace a line for each of these three pieces of makeup. Tracing involves occular motor skills, i.e., eye-hand coordination. Given my eye problems and motor skill problems, I have the worst of both worlds here. My OT began prompting me a bit with some compensations: sit down in front of a small mirror and apply the make up, support your arms on the table, hold your arms close into your body, hold your eyelid with two fingers while applying eyeliner. After I started supporting myself, the makeup did go on easier and I managed to get the eyeliner on without painting squiggles. I don't know that I will wear eyeliner everyday, but it would be nice to be skilled with it so I could do myself up whenever I wanted to look fancy. I am going to try to wear makeup everyday to OT as a lot of my problems with makeup lie in putting it on correctly and consistently over time.
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