How to Create a Matte Lip
One of the things I am very sure that I learned from Velma was how to matte lipstick. I was about 9 years old, and matte lipsticks were not so readily available then -- especially because the 1980's was all about glossy lips.

It's simple, she said. First, you apply lip balm, then you put on a thick layer of regular lipstick (in that instance, she was using some fire engine red lipstick). Then you take a sheet of tissue paper and blot your lips on it by putting the tissue in between your lips. Then you dust some powder on your lips. Then apply the lipstick again and blot your lips one more time.
This trick was designed to not only create a matte lip but to make sure that your lipstick stays on, she said.

And then she made me do as she instructed. I had no idea why she was teaching me all this, and I really would have preferred to mix lipstick and powder on a petri-dish in my makeshift "Lab" to put the concoction under my microscope than to see how a matte lip would look on me. And I think she saw that look on my face that told her that I thought nothing more of her than some ex-debutante / beauty queen / cheerleader type. So she put me in my place by telling me that I needed to learn how to matte my lips because my lips were too big to go glossy, and that I would be grateful for the knowledge she was giving me when I grew up.

Who could argue with that, right? So I ignored the jibe about the size of my lips and applied my first matte lip.

I have often wondered in the decades following that incident what made her get up from her bed and lead (read: command) me to her dresser for an impromptu make-up session. It's not like I was some girly-girl who would have bugged her for such Beauty Wisdom. Or maybe it was because I wasn't a girly-girl so she probably reckoned that she should volunteer the wisdom because I was too busy dreaming of white lab coats and robots to ask her -- or to even know the value of such questions.

Or perhaps it was simply unacceptable to her that one of her daughters would go on existing without knowing how to properly create a matte lip. That's a very Velma thing to think.

Velma may have forced her make-up and beauty tips on me at a young age. But she was the one who also bought me a toy Gatling Gun, a Spider-man arm and Swiss Army knives. She may have tried to raise me as the perfect corporate wife but she also never stopped me from taking Judo lessons. She may have stopped talking to me for a week after I came home with my first tattoo, but she was also the one who proudly brandished my daggered arm to her friends at work.

And I do think that all my contradictions, the inconsistencies that make me unique, I got that from her. Because I do know how to create a matte lip but I also know how to tell a Gatling Gun apart from a Hauser. Because she allowed me to learn both. To be both.

It's Mother's Day today. One of the few days in a year where I allow myself to miss her. So today, I will wallow in my memories of Velma. That's my way of celebrating today with her.