Awkward moments in beauty

I like to think that I’m artfully bummy.  I know how to be stylish though.  “When she does it, she does it right,” someone said.  I do care what I look like.

But people think that their opinion of their own looks is objective.  I’m pretty, or I’m handsome, they say.  Just a form of self love, maybe?  What else could it be when you say, ‘I’m pretty’ like it’s a statement etched on a library façade?  Some of us believe we’re good-looking, and that it’s a cold fact.  I’ve always said that it all depends on who’s looking at me.  Some days I stand out, other days, I blend in.  It’s more important to focus on having personality.  (Hehe — this is what all aging, average-looking people say.)

I had to have personality, a sense of humor, to have taken some of the comments that I’ve gotten.  At this age when a man stares, I think he just wants to rob me, so I’ll take all the compliments I can get.  But I’ve gotten interesting comments throughout the years.

One coworker said that I looked like Pam Grier.  Pam Grier was fine.  I do not look like no Pam Grier.  I know it’s possible for me to look like a woman who has huge tits when I don’t really have any.  But — really?  This person was on psychedelics, obviously.

I unwittingly jumped in front of a woman in Kentucky Fried Chicken.  I got into a confrontation with the woman and her friend — I was young and stupid.  Outside, once I had gotten waaaaay down the hill, one yelled, “Crackhead!  You ugly bitch!”  I wanted to cry but told her that she was a pussy for telling me this standing a block away.

I do have a penchant for the raggedy.  To top it off I was skinny with platinum hair, a nose ring, and had ordered corn on the cob and biscuits in a Kentucky Fried Chicken – I never ate their chicken.  The bitches thought I was broke.  I could see why calling me an ugly crackhead bitch was a convenient insult.

When I wasn’t blonde, my head was shaved.  “I love a bald headed girl,” this guy said as I was leaving a club.  Yay me!  This was a Latin club where the women have mucho hair, so I might say that it was the highest compliment.

Finally my friend’s mother raved about my mother’s beauty.  “Her skin’s like peaches and cream and her hair is beautiful, and she’s soooo tall,” she said.  “But what about Sandee,” my friend said.  “Oh, she’s all right, but her mother…”  When I want to pretend that I don’t care about my looks, I just remember this.  Ouch!