Gilt-y as charged

For most of my life I have not been what one might consider "girly." Especially during my childhood. Yet one of my best friends when I was younger was VERY girly. So was her mom. And her baby sister. They lived in a world of pink ruffled canopy beds. The living room (which we were not allowed in) was white and baby blue. And that's all. Everything in that room was white or baby blue. No exceptions. They even put up a white artificial tree at Christmas, decorated only with blue lights and blue and silver ornaments. There were even prop-gifts below it: empty boxes expertly wrapped in the appropriate color scheme.

It was nothing like my house or my family. And I felt like a foreigner visiting at first...and I was kind of in awe of it. There were so many toys at their house that we used them to pile up walls in the basement to make little rooms to set up the toys we actually wanted to play with. She had a lemonade stand. No. Really. It looked like an olde-timey soda fountain. It rolled out on wheels, had a candy striped canopy, and four spinning stools for the customers to sit on. She also had a pool. It should go without saying that I spent more of my summer at her house than I did my own.

When Junior High rolled around I found myself interested in being girly for the first time in my life. So it took very little urging by this friend's mother for me to sign up for a dance class and cheerleading. The cheerleading thing lasted two weeks. Long enough for me to get the uniform, try it on, cheer at one soccer game, and then quit. I joined the soccer team instead.

The dance class lasted through one whole season. I liked the girls in my class. I adored the instructor who happened to be Miss Suburb of the town I grew up in. (And her mom, who owned the studio, was totally Miss Baltimore Crabs!) And, truth be told, I can still remember most of the dance to Herbie Hancock's "Rockit". We wore mostly black, with neon socks and fingerless gloves. Over the leotards we had on short sleeve sweatshirts with the neck hole cut out and the words Dance! Dance! Dance! in neon written across it. We did the whole piece under black light. I clearly remember seeing the video of the number after the show and recognizing that from the audience it looked like random darting neon spots with the occasional glowing grin the only evidence there were actually people on stage.

Fast-forward to today.

I check out the offerings on Gilt.com most days. If you don't know what it is you should check it out. And if you sign up tell them I sent you! I am feeling a little girly lately and find myself in the market for a new handbag so I usually check through the designers offering accessories that day. Today, Alexander McQueen is on the list. All of his bags were already sold out BUT he does have these to offer:

And god help me but I want them!! They are u-g-l-y as s-i-n and I know if I get them I will have to replace all the light bulbs in the basement with black lights. Just looking at them makes me want to cut up a sweater or something. I am stuck singing an instrumental song that won't get out of my head! And I can distinctly smell 1983...smells a little like le Jardin (and not the nice one from Hermes...the one from Walgreens...next to the Love's Baby Soft.)