nolite te bastardes carborundorum

I just keep thinking about lipstick. I don’t really wear it. I’ve never really been into it. But I could wear it if I wanted. Red. Blue. Orange. Black, even, if I felt like it. I have that choice. I have that freedom.
 
A lifetime ago, I worked outreach at a Thai women’s prison. When asked what rights they wanted while imprisoned, one of the things the ladies said was to be able to wear make-up—mascara, eye shadow, lipstick. That same summer, as it is now, Iran was enveloped in protests over a (probably/possibly stolen) election. A male cousin joked about the protesters, telling me that his mom and our other female cousins in Iran were upset with him for mocking what he called the “lipstick vote.” He claimed that the protesters wanted “nothing more than to be able to wear lipstick and to get divorced.” 
 
I just keep thinking about this. I think about the protests in Iran now, the brave women defying restrictive edicts that govern their everyday choices—to let their hair down, to wear a coat that hits higher than the knees, to paint their fingernails, to wear lipstick. And I keep thinking about the women in the prison outside of Chiangmai, wanting their makeup, and the women in Afghanistan, wanting their education and careers, and the women in the United States, wanting their reproductive rights. And I just keep thinking how it’s all related. And “The Handmaid’s Tale.” And nolite te bastardes carborundorum.

Cook for Iran. Cook for women. Cook for life. Cook for freedom.

And don’t let the bastards grind us down. 💄💄💄💄

[pumpkin and meatball ash—
beef @swaledalebutchers ; spices @rootedspices ; pumpkin @natoora ; beef stock from doggy-bagged @hawksmoorrestaurants ribeye bones]