EXPARIMENT #5: DATED DIY BOOKS
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i know i'm straying somewhat from the original idea set forth on the expariments week to week. but, i'm afraid, there was just nothing helpful online this week. so i hit the family bookshelf. mostly what was there were my dad's antique cookbooks, but i already did a segment on cooking. then there were craft books that held projects that just would've made a little old bitty swoon with delight, i'm sure, but just don't tickle my fancy. then there's the vastly outdated DIY books. sure, why not see how these ideas and helpful hints withstand the test of time?
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by the way, as i am sure you know, DIY is an acronym of "Do It Yourself," which, i always thought, was a tad rude phrasing, but, i digress.
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flipping through various glossaries and referance tables in the fronts and backs of books, i picked out two expariments. one is for maitenance of 10-speed bikes, and mine is totally shot. the other is a complete makeup guide from my mama's old cosmotology textbook, which i took as a chalange.
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first, the bike challange:
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i wasn't really wasn't crazy about the whole "outside" thing when i was a kid. too bookish, i guess. but i missed out on all the stuff that preteens of the american midwest should've done. like taking apart my bike, putting it back together, possibly wrong, and then hangin' out with my dad as we fixed it right this time. never too late to start, though, i guess.
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so, the book i used was the Do It Yourself Encyclopedia book 2 (copyright 1976) to be my guide to my bike. my poor delilah (i name absolutely everything) was desperately neglected, rusty in all her tight crevases, and groaned with every movement. but i just knew if i could somehow get all those cogs and chains off, gave them a thorough scouring and a nice long soak in WD30, once i'd put her all back together, she'd be right as rain! (wait, actually, no. rain is what got her into this mess... and oxygen...)
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anyway, even though i was pretty sure what was wrong with delilah, i went through the whole checkup bit first:
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make sure the speed knobs turned without problem, and that there was a reaction amongst the chain and sprockets. turns out, there was more wrong with delilah than i thought -- there was absolutely no response as i turned the speed dials. after a moment of panic, i decided that this was okay, as i never really use all those different speeds -- just 5, an average speed. that was the one it was stuck on. so no worries there.
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check that the brake cables worked and were not stretched or freyed. well, that's one part that has not withstood the test of time: instead of the poly-cotton brake cables of yore, mine were made of twisted titanium (i assumed, since that's what the lable said the rest of the bike was made of) wires with accordion latex squeeze fixtures. but i tested the brakes on the handlebars. the one on the right worked, squeezed the buffers against the tire at my command. the left one, upon inspection, i realized had been completely disconnected. i hoped that this would not weaken the stopping power of the bike by half...
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and a number of other things, mostly obvious, like make sure when you turn the handlebars, the front tire turns with them, and that the seat should be no higher than your pelvis, etc.
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then it got on to how to take it the gears and chain off, and how to put them back on. artistically-minded, i have always worked well with diagrams, even if the brown-and-gold illustrations did annoy me a bit. but i was able to take them all off, except for the biggest gear, which seemed to be rusted permenantly in place -- maybe a contributer to the lack of speed-switching? -- and gave them all an alcahol rinse (from my bathroom; not the top shelf of the pantary), proceeded to scrub the worst of the rust off with a now-destroyed scratch pad attatched to the back of a sponge, then soak them all in WD40, the wonder-elixer to metal appliances. after a nice thorough drying, i reattatched the pieces in the proper order, replacing the chain to gear number 5 (or maybe 6, depending on which way i was suppost to be counting.... but, whatever, not a big change if it was wrong).
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after fixing her up, making her shine in her non-rusty bits, and a few quick pumps into her empty tires, i took her for a test ride. and you know that saying, "it's like riding a bike: ya never forget!"? well, that's crap. i mounted that poor bike, and froze for, like, ten minutes, because i wasn't sure how i was supposed to get started. it took years to learn, and i was afraid it would also take a long time to re-learn. but, i gave it my best shot -- and shoot i did! all the way down my street, around the bend, i clipped a mailbox, and crashed headfirst into a neighbor's "bungalow".
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my brakes were destroyed. i don't know how much bike brakes cost, but i know they're one of many things we can't find at our crap-excuse for a local wal-mart. you'd be lucky if you could find a stinkin' helmet in the bike section -- which, the bruise on my scalp reminds me, i should get a new one, since my old one is the size of an eight-year-old's cranium.
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anyway, delilah runs better now than she did. i wouldn't say she ran like NEW, but she does run (which, really, is more than i could say about her last week).
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second, the make-up chalange:
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it was the most complete makeup guide i think is in existance. no fooling, it actually had more steps than bike maitenance! turns out it IS an exact science. i used the Standard Textbook of Cosmotology (copyright 1981) to map out my face. and i tell ya, if i never see another compact of blending powder, it would be way too soon...
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it started rather generic -- what is the shape of your face? according to the illustrations, i was a heart-shaped face, made to look even moreso by the family widow's peak. but, upon reading, i found this book to be quite cynnical and biased. all the tips put together to create the illusion of the "right" face: an oval face with average features, and because i had a heart-shaped face with freckles and uneven lips, and a short neck, i had the wrong face, and should use make up to contort it to look like the right face! it used words like, "too close together," "too far apart," and "the wrong size." i wanted to find the collaborated authors and smack them all at once, screaming, "fool! my face is not "too much" or the "wrong" anything! it's what i was born with, and that makes it all the right length, and they're all in the right places, because that's obviously what God wanted my face to have! not even Quasimodo had features in the "wrong" places!" but, again, i digress...
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so, i went with the general darkening bits as indicated by the dotted line, which, really i could've used any of my mama's make up. see, i naturally have a ghoulish complexion, which means, when i DO wear make up, i have to find one labled "ivory" or "alabaster," since everything else would be too dark.
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then on to the "corrective make up" section:
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i didn't have to worry about age lines (or really any lines at all -- dude, i'm nineteen) so i skipped that part.
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i didn't have a low forehead (on the contrary, i inherrited the family forehead, along with the family widow's peak, which means that expanse of skin is, well, expanse...), but neither was it bulging, which is a miracal, considering how many in my family DO have bulging heads, so i skipped that part, too.
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i did not have a large, portruding nose (i sometimes wonder if it's TOO small), but neither is it flat, or broad, or receding (how does THAT work?!). it's sorta buttoney, i guess. i guess, if this biased book can't improve upon my nose, then maybe i have nothing to worry about here.
i don't really have a small chin, or a double chin. it's kinda turnip-shaped, but they don't address that here. skipped.
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i do have somewhat broad jaws, so i followed its advice and darkened along the jawline, starting at the temples. not a bad effect, really. really could've used that little nugget of knowledge when i was in plays in high school...
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and i did have a somewhat short neck that keeps me from wearing conventional tee-shirts and most sweaters. so i darkened that, as per directed.
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none of the improvable eye illustrations, or eyebrow illustrations fit me, so apparantly, i was doing something right, or they just had never met with eyes like mine before (now, whether that's a good thing or not...). but i looked weird wiht nothing on them, so i dug around on the bookshelf until i found one of the magazines mama got from work, and found a good eye shadow ad, and followed it's instructions one, two, three, four. since i only had two eye shadows, one in various flavors of black and blue, and the other a single block of poison fairy green, i took the black and blue one, since it had the 4 pannels that matched the magazine ad. mixed with my color, i did, indeed, look ghoulish, which made me giggle.
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uneven lips -- my bottom is larger than my top. but, when i extended the edges of the top lim to match the bottom, like the book suggested, i looked like those old women whose facial features have shrunken over time, and now only wear lipstick AROUND thier lips. so i whiped it off and did it my way. mind you, i only really know how to do the over-the-top makeup of the stage, or the over-the-top makeup of the gothic realm. so, when it came time to do lipstick, the only preparations i had were black lipstick, gooing up already from last halloween (which made me sad to see), and this crazy bright-friggin' fire-engine maralyn monroe red made at least a decade ago, and shows no signs of ever expiring. so i used the second one.
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and what have i learned from this process? that i apparantly have an o.k. face -- one that, at least, can hardly be improved upon according to a book from 1981. i have also learned that i don't have a face that belongs in that year, nor does it really belong in this one. which is good, really -- some people just look hopelessly contemporary. at any rate, in this makeup, i look like i should be singin' and swingin' with some soldiers after a long year of killin' nazis. which is cool!
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FINAL VERDICT: the DIY Encyclopedia stood up to the test of time, except for the brake line, which was the only thing keeping the whole oredal from being a success. i learned that, if i had the time, patience, desire, and lack of allergy to most oil-based makeups, i could walk right in to a black tie event without an invite, and the only people that would notice would be the ones oggelling me. however, i also found that, while i may look good, i don't feel like me. there's a reason i go by a man's name (frank, and variations thereof). i rarely feel womanly enough to relate to them. one day, though, i may yet feel the desire to become drop-dead gorgeous, and ride through town on a 10-speed bike showing off this fact. and i know, now, that i could.

for i am we, and we are labrats, and LABRATZ-R-WE!