I am used to Elle being an amusing mix of contradictions. I usually pick through each issue laughing at $4,000 fashions that are so insanely over the top that nobody would ever be caught dead in them, interspersed between some really engaging psychological and political articles. It's always a mystery to me why the best book reviews I've ever found in one consistent place are between the Botox and the Prada, but...whatever. I have established a fond affection for both Lauren Slater pieces and moisturizer through Elle, and am somewhat alarmed that I think I'm being gradually infected by the handbag virus. I'll forgive them that for their startlingly on-target caution against unnecessary cesareans a year or more ago.

Moving along - in this issue there is actually a full page dedicated to the civil war and unrest in Sierra Leone caused by the diamond mining that goes on there. It describes, complete with pictures of starving orphans, how 50,000 people have died due to the fraudulent and unchecked trade of selling us spoiled Westerners diamonds in the past few years...and it is DIRECTLY ACROSS from an add for diamond studded Gucci watches.

The mind boggles.

---

Speaking of little old Target shopping me reading Elle obsessively - class in general has been on my mind a lot, lately. For instance, it is startlingly obvious at times that Grant was raised middle class and is comfortable there, whereas I am a lot more familiar and at ease in lower class settings. I really, really enjoy middle class environments, but I am aware of them, and of myself in them, in a way that he...is not. I think I am at about Stage 3 of 5 in the "Fake it til you make it" process.

As I drive my brand new Prius to Starbucks, talking on my cell phone, iPod plugged into the auxillary inlet and playing through the speakers, I feel surreal, and almost guilty. Parking with my laptop in a leather bag on the seat next to me, so I can go in to write for a couple of hours, it occurs to me that I would be very embarrassed if my mother or my friend Melissa could see me right then. I think Grant is genuinely baffled by this as if I'm just trying to be funny - it's one of the only things I've ever felt I couldn't convey or he couldn't relate to well enough for us both to be on the same page. I can't explain why I would be embarassed. I encounter a lot of these sorts of scenarios over the past few years, wherein I am looking at myself from the outside and feeling rather incredulous about it all.

A really high end mall (Saks, Macy's, Godiva, a Gucci store) is about half a mile from my counselor's office. I dropped Ananda off at the counselor today, and went over to the mall with Elise so we could walk around for the hour Ananda had her session. The nanny (!) was here with the boys. I ended up saying, well, I'm almost out of that ridiculous Estee Lauder moisturizer Elle inspired me to start using. The stuff has completely stopped me from breaking out for the first time in my post-elementary-school life, but the day I don't use it I have pimples again.

Well, I ended up THRILLED to see that for buying that (gulp) $38 moisturizer (the first one has already lasted 6 months, though!), I was "entitled" to buy this big old Estee Lauder holiday package of makeup for $49.95. I mean, this grand opportunity completely cancelled out my frizziness and the hook and eyes of my sausage casing of a girdle showing through my clingy shirt in the presence of a coiffed and tailored saleswoman who kept looking down towards our strappy heel and flip flopped feet (you guess who was who).

It really is an incredible deal, value-wise - it's 3 lipsticks, 2 glosses, mascara, eyeliner, a blush trio, a huge spectrum of eyeshadows (which I've been needing some more of since mine dissapeared!), eye makeup remover, 5 brushes of theirs which alone would be well over $100 normally, and a couple of cases - the big one it all initially comes in and a smaller one to stick in a purse. Everything is full size, no samples. I didn't even mind trying to carry the huge bag while Elise struggled to dive out of my arms.

So I ran out of there all happy because I have still been using the overpriced Lancome makeup I splurged on with a tax return back when I was working, which was, uh...6 years ago?

Which should really say something about how much I need makeup and the frequency with which I use it, but I DIGRESS!*

The point is, when I got home to my boys and my nanny - my perpetual yoga pants and tshirt nanny, who carries little hippy totes and never wears makeup that I can tell, I mean she is a birth activist and a lesbian and honestly I think she wouldn't be caught dead even in a ballet flat - well. I left the bag in the van. Because I was embarassed. Nordstrom, honestly.

This completely leaves aside the curiosity it is to be supporting another person who sees me as an employer. I'll save all that good feeling, gratitude and strange awkwardness for some other entry.

*27 year olds with messed up stomachs need way more makeup than 21 year olds who can't even believe they're not teenagers anymore do. 30 seems more real everyday, over here.