A Girl...

International Fashion Disaster

Photo by Kilo, I think

Going on vacation can start to feel like being abandoned in the desert with naught but a canteen and an oar when you spend four days in London sans blowdrier and hairspray because, in the first case, you couldn't find a voltage adapter, and in the second, you thought you should just make do with thirty-five barrettes because you're not and never have been a hairspray person (although you've never been the host organism for the Bangs that Ate Greenland either, so things may have to change in that regard.) So it was that I was accompanied to all the great tourist destinations in London by Lieutenant Chignon Damp and his army of metal clips.

Although skipping the blowdry and style phase of my morning routine saved a considerable amount of time better spent ridiculing the ENORMOUS sparkly belts worn by the trendy female denizens of the city, I mostly wished I could just dry my hair so i could have more than one style option to coordinate with my outfit and the activities of the day. Choosing clothes that interface pleasantly with one's environment is especially important when on vacation, see, since there will be many photographs taken during that time--photographs of the variety that are likely to end up in frames or on fridges or passed down through the generations and scrutinized in perpetuity. (I actually kind of hate to admit that because when you look at what I wore, it's a pretty unimpressive spread, due mostly to the fact that in trying to disguise that I agonized over every article I packed, I come off looking not breezy and low-maintenance and naturally stylish, but sloppy and also probably blind. I mean, check out this shirt, which apparently has the power to add fifty pounds of belly weight to its wearer. As soon as the picture was taken, I reviewed it, exclaimed loudly in shock and horror, and then passed it around the pub for an informal poll of

A. It's just a bad picture; of course you don't look like that
or
B. Yes, you really look like a polka-dot beluga; easy on the Nestle ice cream bars, lady.

In the end, I look pretty mediocre overall, which is fine, I guess. I can't really feel too bad about it because as I was sorting through photos trying to figure out which night we had ramen and which night we had burritos and which night we had Chinese (nice traditional English fare, no?), I discovered that part of my confusion centered on Simon's having worn his Nutter shirt for about forty-eight hours. He didn't want to put clean clothes on a dirty body, he said, which means I now have to admit that over our first three days in England, we only showered once (each, as opposed to collectively, although we did share the water). As I said: like being abandoned in the desert with a canteen and an oar.

This is all just an elaborate introduction to my point, whicch is IT IS GOING TO BE SO GREAT WHEN WE LIVE IN ONLY ONE APARTMENT. See, Monday afternoon we came home and put all our luggage at my place, where we spent the night. Tuesday night we slept at Simon's, however, and wouldn't you know it, all our toiletries were still at my house--makeup, toothbrushes, fucking blowdrier. And thus it was that today I woke up, showered, wrapped my wet hair into a goddamn bun, and fenced in the bang wisps with the two barrettes I was lucky to find, and went old-school with what makeup I had--pale pink lipstick tripling as blush and eyeshadow, a technique that worked when I was a dewy-cheeked pre-teen but today made me look like an oiled pork loin because I didn't even have a pressed-powder compact to dull the glare of the lipstick-that-wasn't-really-lipstick-but-actually-more-of-a-shimmery-gloss-shut-up.

And how, you ask, did I complete the look? With drawers and closests and shelves of clothes to choose from at last, I picked out my tiny little orange puff-sleeve jacket the with laughably oversized novelty snaps, which had been hanging in my closet in Simon's room. The closet that has always faintly but increasingly more over the last few months reeked of cat piss. Hence why I only keep my shoes and a few sturdy coats in that closet.

But it was early and we needed to be out of the house by eight and it was chilly outside and oversize novelty snaps! and it wasn't until sitting in a meeting at 10:30 that I realized wow, I smell like a cat box. I had another jacket I could have swapped out for the rank one, but dammit, my hair was in a wet bun and my bangs were closing over my forehead like a blonde grizzly paw, and my face was reflecting my coworkers' wrinkled noses back at them, and that cute little puff-sleeved orange jacked with the oversize novelty snaps was all I had and I couldn't let go! So I stunk my way through a nine-hour workday, probably disgusting no one more than myself, since I didn't dare get out of my chair and cropdust my stench throughout the office, and it wasn't until I got home that I tossed the offending item into the hamper and looked for a baseball cap to tame the coif.

And so now here I am sitting on the couch scrawling this entry with a dull pencil in a notebook because my neighbors have finally passworded their wireless network. And every ten seconds I have to shove Eve from my lap because she can smell the cat piss on me and won't keep her moist snout out of my armpit, where the odor is apparently most concentrated.

Yes, it's good to be home. And it'll be even better when home is under a single roof.