Not as girly as I used to be...apparently...

A few weekends ago, I was hanging out at my cousin’s house, spending time with the girls. I worked on their computer – downloading anti-virus software and cleaning their computer – played with little Ruby (apparently, just like when my Goddaughter was a baby, she doesn’t like it when I sit down while holding her; need to have her high up in the air), and I let my girls play with my iPod Touch. My older niece spent most of the time playing tic-tac-toe, but my Goddaughter looked through all the photos.

Later in the evening, my cousin was flipping through the photos and came across these three from my senior year of high school:

And this one from November 2008:

She wanted to know why I didn’t do my hair that way. My hair only looks that way when I see my hairstylist. I don’t blow dry or use a curling iron. My cousin said, “Don’t you watch ‘What Not to Wear?’ You only need 5 minutes.” Um, no, I don’t watch that show. Only when I’m over at her house and she’s watching it. (She watches a lot of shows I don’t. I mainly stick to ‘Criminal Minds’ and ‘Roseanne’ re-runs.)

In the high school photos she pointed out that I was wearing make-up and a mini-skirt. She wanted to know why I didn’t dress like that anymore. “What happened???”

What did happen?

I don’t know. I got older. I went to college in Minnesota and it didn’t really matter what we wore; it was all about Birkenstocks and comfort. (Yes, I caved and bought my very own pair of Birkenstocks.) I guess looking at me you wouldn’t think I grew up and live in Los Angeles. I remember when I used to say my high school was more of a fashion show than academic. And back then, I did what I could to resemble that. I didn’t even own a pair of jeans back then. Now, I’m a jeans and t-shirt kind of girl.

In February, I had dinner with friends in Pasadena. One of my friends and I arrived earlier than our other friends, so we looked around in Sephora to kill some time. She was looking for a new perfume and some eye makeup, but suddenly decided to play makeover with my face. She started putting eye shadow on me, then cover up, blush, lip gloss, etc.
Here’s a picture of me when she was done:

She kept saying how great I looked and how much better I looked. (Gee, thanks.) And kept trying to get me to buy makeup and actually wear it. She insisted that she would do my make-up every time we went out from then on. That hasn’t happened, but maybe it’s because when we’ve gone out lately, it’s to the mall or movie, out with her daughter or out to lunch. That night we had dinner with friends and then bar hopping in Pasadena.

All of this has me thinking. Do I look that bad? (Aside from the weight issue.)

Most recently, just last weekend, there were two events I had to dress up for; we had a mixer at a Hollywood club and a black-tie dinner honoring Simon Cowell and Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York. For the club mixer, I wore a short black skirt paired with a lace blouse and beaded see-through shrug. I didn’t wear heels, but nice sandals with a slight platform. No make-up, except for lip gloss and my hair was down. For the dinner, I wore the same shoes with a black lace dress I bought two years ago, but hadn’t worn yet. With both outfits, everyone was like, “wow, you look great!” They appeared to be highly surprised. Even he that has disappointed me said I looked lovely.

I am all about comfort. I don’t wear heels because I can’t walk in them. I do like to dress cute, though, I realize that sometimes my cute outfits are cuter in my head than in reality. But I do dress up when need be and I do have nice clothes. I just don’t get all dressed up every day, day in and day out. I get hot a lot so I don’t wear make-up and my hair is very thick and it takes too long to blow dry, so it’s easier to put up in a bun or clip.

Most importantly, I just don’t feel the need to dress up if I don’t want to. I’m comfortable. Last weekend I couldn’t wait to get out of my “fancy” clothes and into comfortable clothes, especially shoes. Even though I wasn’t wearing heels, it was hell walking in them, so as soon as I could, they were off and my toes felt a whole lot better in my flat sandals and flip flops. :-)