s.o.l.e.: a strategy for getting out of a tight place

russian red--lipstick of choice

remember that annoying show jersey shore?  it was popular way back in, i think, '10?

remember that annoying dude who had his g-t-l routine?  gym-tan-laundry?

well, i have my own annoying routine, called s-o-l-e.

it came about one year when i was in college and my roomie was bff's with a dude who was a make-up artist for estee lauder.  i was agonizing in such an annoying privileged white girl college student way about how hard it was for me to get a big paper done for class, how overwhelmed i was, how i simply wanted to die it was so hard.  all this while wearing annoying sweats and sporting greasy hair.  the brilliant and talented make-up artist said:

get your ass in the shower, put on some clothes, and i'll do your hair and make-up.  no one could write a paper looking like that.

so i followed his direction.  he did my make up.  i put on an out of africa inspired taupe ralph lauren skirt and floral sweater with riding boots (this being the eighties).  and i wrote my paper.

over the years, i've learned the wisdom of the s-o-l-e routine to get you out of the mini-tight spot of procrastination.

S= SHOWER (get your ass in there)

O= OUTFIT (put on something nice and structured)

L= LIPSTICK (you can look like you tried, and like you got some rest the night before)

E= EARRINGS (ornamentation is always good, in my book)

(lest you think i'm horribly hetero-normative, hyper-capitalist, retro, anti-feminist, blah, blah, blah, i'm not.  you can substitute whatever works for you above.  maybe you like workboots.  maybe you like leather jackets.  whatever.  as long as it's not sweats and it makes a good acronym.)

one time i was all by myself in a cabin in the woods for three days trying to finish a screenplay.  i was completely alone.  but i still did s-o-l-e because it gave me the feeling of structure and focus i needed to finish.  and i did finish.

but maybe this is just me.  i do suffer from what, in the days when men still wore tights, they used to call an overabundance of phlegm.  my humours are definitely way out of whack.  so this helps me.

i love to hear other people's secret little tricks.  especially if they're a tiny bit shameful, like mine.

& i found some cool ones on julianna baggott's blog.  we're like the same person--we both have five kids--if i was a best-selling author who had also published nineteen books.  and i loved what our first ever guest blogger wrote about breathing through her tight places yesterday.

legwear:  snakeskin jeans (again)

inspiration:  little routines

looking forward:  william o. smith concert tonight