IPSY Ultimate August 2026

 Weirdly, my package showed up on Sunday. That's kind of unusual, but here we are. This is my very last IPSY Ultimate until I run out of products.....and that's going to be a while.

Let's get into the haul.

MERIT

Shade Slick Gelée Tinted Lip Oil in Jeté (sheer natural)

Currently, this is sitting comfortably and smugly on my lips. It has a nice warm, soothing feel to it. It does everything a good lip oil should do....which is mostly just make your lips feel really decent. It's doing its job. It's sheer. I am content.

MAKEUP BY MARIO

Master Mascara® in Super Black

Currently unopened and will remain unopened and will be someone's gift more than likely because I just can't with another mascara. Even a good one. No offense to you, Mario, but I just can't do it. You will find a home. It will not be mine.

BEAUTY BIO

Swipe & Glow Peel Pads

After I tried on my actual makeup products, I took everything off and used these. They're pretty great. I'm currently in a situation where I'm at the dregs of a bottle of toner, so using these once a day (recommended not to use them more than that) should help the toner to last longer.

Be careful when you pull them out. I pulled out two by mistake. They're really thin.

ILIA BEAUTY

Skin Rewind Complexion Stick in Aspen 6N

The color works really well. I think it will layer nicely with whatever else I happened to have going on as far as complexion is concerned. It's probably too hot to try and use this right now, but it could be really great this fall.

MUTHA

Up All Night Eye Cream

It looks good, and it does what it's supposed to do. Having said that, be very careful when you pump some out. A very, very tiny amount goes a long way. I had this stupid line of it that I was having to try and use.

NARS COSMETICS

Afterglow Sensual Shine Lipstick in High Gear (Burnished Coral)

Basically? It's your lips but slightly brighter. That's never a bad thing. I'm always very happy with NARS packaging too because it feels very luxe and looks very luxe. Does that matter in the end? You know, usually I say no, but recently I've decided that we all need more beauty in our lives, so, yeah, yeah it matters.

KORRES

Kyma Eau de Toilette

Yeah okay. WOW. It's even better than I expected. It's heavenly really. I knew I was going to like this for the top notes of citrus, especially the lime. What I didn't expect was this stunning back kick of what almost feels like melon. Heart notes on this include marine and watery notes so my guess is that is where the melon suggestion is coming from. I have no idea. I just know I really love this.

INDIE LEE

Stem Cell Serum

This is one of those, well, we'll have to wait and see kind of products, so I'll just give you what first impressions I have. It is...surprisingly snot-like, which is rather unpleasant to rub onto the skin. It's also very difficult to get it into the pipette. You really have to work to make that happen. I'm not fond of this. However, if this does as it claims it does, I may change my mind and consider the process worth it.

So yeah, overall, this isn't a bad month to end on. I only refused one product, and everything else is very good. My favorite is the Kyma. I knew it would be, but I did not realize how MUCH it would be. It's stunning, though. I am a very happy person at the moment.

Lighting my Blunt off the Flames They Use To Burn My Witchy-Self

[Probably Spoilers in this. So yeah, avoid if you don't like them.]

As far back as I can remember, when it comes to femme characters, I always enjoyed the villains more. They had style and flair and a joie de vivre most often absent from other characters. If said production involved singing, they often had the funnest song. They usually had the most iconic costume. Were their motivations stupid? Often. But that was beside the point. Did they get punished? Oh. Almost always, but as Kiki Rockwell said in “Same Old Energy,” 'No matter what the good you did, you'll wind up at the stake.'

As I got older, this enjoyment expanded. Phyllis Dietrichson. Norma Desmond. Martha from “Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” pausing mid-stagger to announce herself a goddess. Amy Dunne.Villanelle. All those soap opera antagonists who married like 15 times. Maeve singing “20 Men from Dublin Town” as they lead her away in handcuffs. Cersei Lannister avenging herself on an entire religion by blowing up their holy temple.

As far as I am concerned, the rest of GoT doesn't exist. The show ended right then. Done. Won.

What the characters I love have in common, more than anything else, is audacity. They have the damned nerve to dress how they want, say what they want, do what they want, love (or not) who they want, do the damage they wish to do, and live as they wish . . . or fight as hard as they can to make that happen. Do they get punished for this? OH. Almost always. But for a while there, it was fun as hell.

Why is this the case for me? I mean, I'm Gen X. These are closer to the perspectives of the women I grew up around. This is Joan Jett singing “Bad Reputation,” Romeo Void singing “Never Say Never,” and the women who would smirk as they tilted their left legs just a little bit more to the left as the street preacher leaned on the fence and yelled at them for sunbathing in their own backyards.

Which is to say, I am so frustrated with the writing of House of the Dragon, specifically with the writing of Rhaenyra Targaryen. Not with the actor who plays the character, but with the writing.

Rhaenyra Targaryen is the only child of the king. That alone should have fused with her spine in such a way that anything she did, she did with confidence and zero apologies. She is also Blood of the Dragon, in a very real way, as she has a connection to a literal massive killy fire creature that can do massive damage. Her family keeps to their old traditions, clearly, meaning she should not be all that affected by the social-shame-conformity cycles that are inflicted on the general population. I mean, even with the characters who did grow up in that, we're seeing more audacity from some of them than we are from her.

Beyond that, this is not a child. This is a woman in her 30s. There is no reason for her to be this unsure about things, this incapable. In this time, as she knew she would have to fight to become queen, she would have established her own spy network, recruited her own propaganda expert, gotten three or four GOOD assassins who knew how to make things happen in such a way that no one even knew it as an assassination, had either alliances and/or blackmail on every lord in the realm, had someone train her to fight, educated herself about how to rule, and lived her life in such a way that showed she was above being questioned.

As for those questions.

Random lord: Who fathered that kid?

Rhaenyra Targaryen: Doesn't matter.

Random lord: Fathers--

Rhaenyra Targaryen: Yeah, okay, Lord Rando, you point out the family that has more status than mine.

Random lord: Uhhh.

Rhaenyra Targaryen: Exactly. My status. My last name. My bloodline. The baby came from my body. Legitimacy comes through me. Now shut up.

Other lord: Who is that man over there?

Rhaenyra Targaryen: My husband.

Other lord: No, that man there is your husband.

Rhaenyra Targaryen: I'm a Targaryen. If I want more than one husband, I have more than one husband. Now shut up, or I'll take your daddy as my third husband. Then I'll be your nightmare stepmama. And from my experience, that means I plot against you and have children to try and take your inheritance.

Eventually, they would have shut up. People can't use something against you if you own it.

Sigh.

Instead, we get an indecisive, whinging, more or less frozen, cringing, shamed, and more or less useless version of her. It's unworthy of the character. It's unworthy of the actor who plays her. And it's very annoying for the audience.

Okay, look, I'm going to talk about her death now, but if you watched GoT, you already heard how she dies, so this is not a spoiler.

My guess is that when they execute Rheanyra, she will be simpering and blubbering and broken. She may beg. She may try to make peace. Or, you know, maybe she will be defeated and just, as usual, do nothing. It will feel hollow and meaningless.

And that sucks.

Because Rhaenyra Targaryen's death should be epic, she should march to the dragon with an arm full of minitarts, popping them in her mouth as quickly as she can. As she eats, she should be singing a song in High Valyrian and dancing. Her hair should be down. She should wear her most iconic outfit. As Aegon makes whatever speech we know he's gonna make, she should just stare him down and continue to pop sweets into her mouth, then give him whatever gesture passes for flipping someone off in Valyrian, give last-minute instructions to her son, and start singing again.

This isn't just satisfying for the character, it's also satisfying for the audience. It isn't rocks falling on your head when you could have moved a foot to the left and not been hit by rocks..........wait, that didn't happen. That season of GoT doesn't exist to me.

Lately there seems to be this tendency to make characters relatable and more like real people. But what are we saying is relatable here? Crying? Disorganization? Failure to plan? Insecurity?

I mean, okay, probably sure that's most people, but is that entertaining?

Characters should be entertaining, distracting, and iconic. I want people who know the rules enough to break the rules. I want people who dig their fingers as deeply into whatever advantages they have and use them as much as they possibly can. I want characters who refuse to be shamed, who create spectacle, who dance as they set the world on fire because they know it's only going to burn them.

I don't know. Maybe the showrunners felt that if they made Rhaenyra Targaryen like this, she'd be less hated by the audience. They should have realized that any femme character is always going to have a level of haters. That's the nature of it. There is, however, a deep and profound freedom in that. When you walk in with disapproval, you're not having to maintain anything. People will change their minds when they see your qualities... or they never would have accepted you in the first place. With the first group, it's a matter of their own personal growth. With the second group? They honestly don't matter. You might as well just find their pearl-clutching amusing as you tilt your left leg farther to the left.

Ideals and Reveals

 Every so often, a piece of internet images reveals more about its creator than its subject. The conservative “Ideal Woman” meme — the one that lists traits like “Only has female friends” “Has No Social Media” and “Hates Communists” — is one of those artifacts. It presents itself as a declaration of values, a bold statement of what a “real man” supposedly wants. But beneath the surface, the meme isn’t a manifesto. It’s a confession.

What struck me when I first saw it wasn’t the usual reaction these prescriptive gender memes provoke...or, you know, try to provoke. I didn’t feel annoyance or 'owned' (typed with an eyeroll), or shame...which I assume is the reaction they wanted, or the reflexive “wow, please announce yourself so I can avoid you.” I certainly didn’t feel the faint sting of comparison — that little internal audit of “am I like this?” or “should I be like this?” Instead, I felt something quieter and more revealing.

I felt the fragility.

Because the meme isn’t about women at all. It’s about fear.

The list reads like a set of constraints rather than qualities. “Only has female friends” isn’t a value; it’s a boundary. “Hates Communists” isn’t a personality trait; it’s ideological insulation. “Modest,” “traditional,” “avoids nightlife,” “loyal,” “predictable” — these aren’t descriptors of a partner. They’re descriptors of a world where the meme maker never has to feel insecure.

The “ideal woman” in this meme is less a person and more a controlled environment. She has no mixed gender friendships, no independent social networks, no exposure to ideas he finds threatening. She is a closed system. A terrarium.

This isn’t strength. It’s hypervigilance.

The meme frames its demands as moral clarity, but psychologically they’re avoidance strategies. A partner with her own life, her own friends, her own political opinions, her own unpredictable human complexity — that’s terrifying to someone who feels fundamentally unsafe in relationships.

So the meme-maker imagines a woman who cannot contradict him, outgrow him, outshine him, or leave him. A woman whose world is small enough that he never has to confront his own inadequacy.

This shows absolutely nothing outside of self-doubt.

The meme is saying: “I need a partner who cannot threaten me.”

That’s not an ideal. That’s a fear response.

What makes the meme fascinating is how confidently it presents itself. The tone is assertive, almost triumphant — as if listing these constraints is an act of masculine authority. But the bravado is paper-thin. Every line reveals a vulnerability the creator is trying desperately to hide.

He believes he’s signaling strength. He’s actually signaling fragility.

He believes he’s describing a woman. He’s actually describing his fears.

He believes he’s setting standards. He’s actually setting limits on what he can emotionally tolerate.

The meme is a fortress built by someone who cannot bear the weather.

If you zoom out, the meme fits into a much older archetype: the Sanctified Woman, the woman who exists not as a person but as a symbol of order. She is pure, loyal, unchanging, untouched by the world. She is a vessel for male anxieties about chaos, change, and vulnerability.

But mythic women like this are always made of glass. They shatter the moment they encounter reality.

Real women — real people — have complexity, contradiction, growth, autonomy, and unpredictability. They have opinions that don’t align perfectly with yours. They have friendships you don’t control. They have histories you didn’t author. They have futures you don’t get to script.

The meme-maker isn’t ready for that. So he imagines a woman who never forces him to grow.

The “Ideal Woman” meme isn’t a portrait of desire. It’s a portrait of fear.

It’s the emotional blueprint of someone who feels endangered by normal human behavior — someone who cannot tolerate disagreement, independence, or unpredictability. Someone who mistakes control for safety and rigidity for strength.

And once you see that, the meme stops being prescriptive or offensive or even annoying. It becomes transparent. You’re not looking at an ideal. You’re looking at a coping mechanism.

The meme-maker thinks he’s announcing what he wants. He’s actually announcing what he fears.

And that’s the most remarkable part of all.

Mind you, anyone who sets down a list of their ideals is revealing a great deal about themselves. It’s unavoidable. Ideals are autobiographical. They tell us what a person fears, what they crave, what they believe they lack, and what they think will finally make them feel safe.

Most people who genuinely desire relationships want things that are beautifully ordinary: stability, safety, harmony, comfort. There is nothing wrong with any of that. These are human desires, not political ones.

But harmony isn’t a constant. Stability isn’t a guarantee. Comfort isn’t a personality trait. These things are moments — goals to be worked toward, appreciated when they appear, and valued precisely because they are not permanent. They are weather patterns, not laws of nature.

And when we speak of ideals, we’re always speaking of something fundamentally unreal. Ideals are smooth. Humans are not. We are flawed, complicated creatures who get sick, get tired, get scared, get hurt, sneeze too loudly, breathe weirdly at night, and fail in ways both small and spectacular. We are not ideals. We are organisms.

The deepest, most meaningful relationships I’ve ever seen — the ones that actually endure — are built on a foundation of choosing someone after you’ve seen their flaws. Not in spite of them, not pretending they aren’t there, but with full awareness of the messy, human reality of who they are.

It’s looking at the person next to you, seeing the cracks, the contradictions, the vulnerabilities, the habits that drive you up the wall, the fears they don’t admit, the ways they fall short — and in that moment, choosing them anyway.

That’s strength. That’s intimacy. That’s adulthood.

And it’s the exact opposite of what the “Ideal Woman” meme is trying to do.

The meme-maker wants a partner who never forces him to confront the unpredictable, uncomfortable, deeply human truth of real relationships. He wants an ideal because he is afraid of a person. He wants purity because he is afraid of complexity. He wants control because he is afraid of choice.

But relationships aren’t built on control. They’re built on choosing someone who is real.

And real people are never ideal. They’re better.

So Rough

July is ending in a very rough way. 

It's really hot and very humid and I'm in a bad place. I went to bed early last night, but it didn't matter. I kept waking up sweaty, usually every two hours. I would give anything if we had an HVAC. Being able to sleep cool during the night would make such a difference.

I'd honestly just be happy with an AC that was programmable.  That would help more than what we have going on right now.

The next few weeks are going to be very intense. Labs and appointments and surgery and then more appointments. I'm not looking forward to it, but here we are.

I need to work on stuff. I don't feel like it. My horrible headache is back, and I'm nauseous. I suspect that an actual night's sleep would help me a lot, but that's kind of impossible right now. In the meantime, I endure.

Let's Talk about the Population

 Let's talk about a decreasing population, shall we?

Currently, we have like 8.3 billion people on the planet.

Honestly, how many more people do you want here? That's an insane amount of people. 

If all these people were having a decent, lovely, self-fulfilling life, that would be one thing. But that isn't the case. Most people's lives are scary and miserable. The rich and powerful are trying even harder to make everyone's life more scary and more miserable. 

Beyond that, most people who whine about people not having enough babies never seem to look at the benefits of what a smaller population can do for you.

Environmental Relief

Lower emissions. Fewer people mean reduced greenhouse‑gas production and a smaller overall carbon footprint. We even saw a version of this during COVID lockdowns, when reduced activity led to measurable drops in emissions.

Resource recovery. Pressure eases on vital resources like fresh water, arable land, and forests. Given how strained these are in many regions, this relief is significant.

Biodiversity growth. Reduced urban sprawl allows natural habitats to expand and wildlife populations to recover. This is not a small benefit — it’s foundational to ecological stability.

Less pollution. Waste generation, plastic use, and chemical runoff all decrease when fewer people are consuming and discarding materials.

As far as the planet itself goes, a lower human population has no environmental downside.

Economic and Workplace Gains

Higher wages. Labor shortages historically increase worker leverage, pushing employers to raise compensation. Whether today’s wealthy class would respond the same way is debatable, but in theory — and historically — this pattern holds.

Automation acceleration. Companies invest more in technology and innovation to compensate for labor gaps. This can counteract some wage gains, but it also drives efficiency and new industries.

Affordable housing. Lower demand reduces real‑estate prices and overall living costs. Again, historically, this is what we’ve seen.

Wealth inheritance. With fewer heirs, generational wealth becomes more concentrated. It’s basic math: my sibling and I split an inheritance 50/50; add more siblings and each person receives less.

Infrastructure and Quality of Life

Reduced congestion. Less traffic means shorter commute times and fewer daily bottlenecks.

Public service relief. Lower population density reduces crowding in public transit, parks, and recreational spaces. It also shortens hospital wait times and improves emergency response speed.

Smaller class sizes. Schools can offer more individualized attention. This is crucial — and it also means fewer students competing for placement in strong programs and for scholarships.

Lower crime potential. Statistically, a smaller youth demographic correlates with lower overall crime rates. And now let me ask you? What are the benefits to higher populations? .............I'll wait.

Finally Happening

 The heat is finally really getting to me. I had a really bad night last night, waking up soaked in sweat and not really able to find much relief from my fans. 

I'm not happy about this. 

I'm also nervous about it because I am having surgery in a few weeks and you're supposed to be very clean before surgery. I can't help the level of sweat I'm going to have going on.  

Overall, it's just exhausting. I'm at that point where the heat is making it difficult to focus on anything. 

Aloneness

 The discussion of the 'unmarried women will end up alone' threat has been going on again.

Ughh. This is so old. 

Anyway, let's get into it.

1. Women tend to outlive men. So it's quite possible that even if you get married, you would not end your life with that person.
2. Roommates exist. Friends exist. Extended family exists.
3. Being alone is actually very peaceful. 


Actually, I think that last one is the one that most people just really do not process. Being alone is peaceful. Your house isn't silent. Your house is full of your thoughts. Your house is full of your wishes. Your house is full of your projects, accomplishments, and favorite things. 

Does this mean you're going to have to figure out who takes you to the doctor? Yes. It does.

But let me ask you to consider this. How many people who have families still end up having to figure out who will take them to the doctor because everyone is busy or not around or is so used to that person being the one who provides that they never consider what it is that person may need?

And then, let me ask you to consider this. What exactly are you asking people to give up in order to live a life to where they might not end up alone? Is that cost really worth it?