Girly Girly Stuff

fabulous tree next door
Originally uploaded by mygothlaundry

I dyed my hair last night. That is to say, oh heavens, I certainly do not dye my hair because I am just not that kind of girl, nope, this is my natural purple. You see, by some mysterious process, about every 2 or so months all this gray stuff appears at my hairline and I find it necessary to retire into the bathroom in my hair dying bathrobe with my box of magical empurpling stuff (I hope to god they never change the picture on the box or I'm doomed) and then, after an interval involving some powerful chemical smells and a couple of plastic supermarket bags wrapped around my head and at least one cigarette on the porch (you have to smoke when you have plastic bags on your head; it's de rigeur) I emerge looking much younger due to the sudden delightful lack of gray in my fabulous, extremely purple hair. Then, over the next couple months, my hair will slowly revert, passing through the ideal phase where it roughly resembles the sort of reddish light brown that I theorize (it's been a long time) is my natural color. Which is going to take some time this summer, because it's really quite purple.

Which is why I am wearing my new dress from the Goodwill. My new dress is sort of a housedress looking thing; short sleeves, elastic waist, full skirt, just below knee length, feels like percale sheets, white, with reddish flower or star outlines on it and I think it was fully worth my $3.50 investment. The only problem is that I bought it under the happy delusion that it would be easy - i.e. I would toss it on in the morning and go and voila, I would be cool (as in temperature not as in hipness; I didn't delude myself that much) and I would be dressed without having to worry about anything. Well, I am wearing the dress and I am cool and I am dressed, but it took me 20 minutes of accessorizing - "Maybe a black camisole? A belt? Do I have a belt like that? What happened to that belt I had in 1994?" to make it look decent and I kind of feel like I'm wearing a costume, i.e., the ironic hipster 1950s housewife costume, which is accentuated by the purple hair.

And then I went to get into the car to run late to work and I realized that the percale sheets that this dress is made of are essentially nearly see through and I heard my mother's quiet, scandalized voice in my head, saying, "Felicity! Go put on a slip!" which cracked me up, since I don't think I even own a slip anymore, but also was kind of weirdly reassuring in that it's nice to know I will always have that voice in my head whenever I put on some kind of girly girly apparel.

UPDATE!!
Everyone liked my dress except Annie. She was horrified and told me never to wear it again, because it just wasn't sexy at all. And right there and in the preceding paragraph you can see the difference between the two sisters: Annie and my mom. Snicker. My mom never, ever told me that my clothes were not sexy enough, believe me, and it was the first thing that bothered Annie. Hee. I'm still kind of giggling about it.