TODAY is 9/11 again.
And I’m wearing red lipstick!
Is there a stronger statement I can make about affirming life, and the act of living itself?
About taking control?
About boldness and vivacity?
Read my lips, people:
Red lipstick rules!
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I have been wearing red lipstick for a week now.
Cremesheen Brave Red, MAC.
I don’t know if I want to keep doing this.
This is my trial period, approximately 15 days.
Just trying to figure out if I like this new image.
If the practice and experience of putting lipstick on is any good for me.
*
Don’t worry, it is still Covid period as far as I am concerned.
I stay mostly at home.
I also wear a mask when I go out so that nobody really sees me with my red lipstick.
So far, I also haven’t posted photos with my red lipstick on in my social media accounts.
I’m not ready to publicly come out as yet.
*
I mean, except for my closest friends who video call me, nobody really sees me with my red lipstick on.
My friends tell me how they feel about me wearing Brave Red.
The reviews are mixed, almost 50-50.
It’s a tight contest.
So, in the end, I may have to decide for myself after this trial period.
*
Why red lipstick?
Well, during these lockdowns and quarantines, I have been thinking how I would come out of this pandemic transformed.
I have been producing books with fervor, but that is just me as a writer.
I wish I could come out with sexy abs, but I’m really lazy about exercising and targeting those abdominal muscles.
So yeah, I’ve given up on washboard abs.
I mean, I’ll just have boys that have them, if that’s okay?
*
I want a change of image.
I want a shorter haircut, but I’m not rushing to it right now.
My hair has really grown so long.
I think that among my high school and college classmates—males and females, I have the longest, healthiest, blackest hair.
At 51, I only have 25, maybe 30, strands of white hair on my head.
I mean, I also fear that one day, I’ll just wake up with 500 white hairs.
But until then, my claim is fine and incontestable.
*
So, yeah, lipstick.
I saw it on a classmate in one of our Zoom virtual reunions.
It looks good on her.
And I wondered, would it look good on him?
And, of course, I mean, me. I, the Peter Solis Nery.
I mean, that would be a great statement if I could carry it, right?
He, with the red lipstick!
*
So I ordered the lipstick online.
Big, bold red. It’s not called Brave Red for nothing, I can tell you that!
Started wearing it as soon as it arrived.
I have to confess, I’m not good in applying lipstick.
I mean, I always have someone applying my lipstick for me during my shows.
But if I am going to do this, I have to do this by myself.
Everyday. Maybe for the rest of my life.
So, practice, practice, practice until I get it perfect.
Until it is automatic habit.
Until I can do it with eyes closed.
*
I am excited by this red lipstick.
I am having fun wearing it.
I feel so much alive even when I am just home, and alone.
It’s actually lifting up my spirit.
I have to confess to some sort of depression since mid-July.
I mean, maybe it was just laziness.
Maybe I was exhausted from producing books at such a frenetic rate.
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But I have spent more days, hundreds of hours, on the couch more than I wanted.
I have been watching a minimum of five movies a day.
I have been watching whole seasons of a show in just one freaking day.
It’s couch, food, movies, bathroom, food, drinks, couch, social media, bathroom for me for a while.
I know it was wrong. But I was lazy.
Covid fatigued. Anxious about the future. And if I may self-diagnose, depressed.
There. That’s the reason why I needed a dramatic change.
That’s the reason for the red lipstick.
*
I am feeling a lot better now.
But let’s see if you will end up seeing me with my red lipstick on.
I mean, if I do it, it will be my new signature.
That will clearly be my post-Covid image.
Peter Solis Nery, the PSN — he, with the red lipstick./PN
