Megan McCafferty

(retro)photo Friday #3: Pink foam rollers

Friday, January 22nd, 2010

This is my third grade class photo. The blouse was silk, the vest was velvet, and though you obviously can’t see them in this photo, the culottes were tweed and brown.

That’s right. Culottes. 1880s newspaper delivery boy knickers updated for the 1980s. Modern pantaloons.

The three elements of this outfit–blouse-vest-culottes–were never separated from one another. Never did I wear the blouse sans vest under my baby blue monogrammed sweater*. Never did I wear the vest over my Cheryl Tiegs brand plaid blouse with ruffles down the front*. Never did I wear the brown tweed culottes with my purple, teal and magenta batwing velour sweater*. BLOUSE-VEST-CULOTTES. It’s as if the whole outfit would self-destruct in a conflagration of bad fashion if one element was removed from the ensemble as a whole.

*Not hypothetical. These are actual descriptions of clothing I once owned and wore and will perhaps post on this blog in the future.

This was my “special occasion” hair. On any ordinary day, my hair was less…flouffy. I can’t even begin to explain what’s happening with the triangular swoop of bang across my forehead. I only know that such special occasion hair could only be made possible through the use of….

Pink.

Foam.

Rollers.

My mother was a big believer in the pink foam rollers. (Rollers, Maybelline mascara and Oil of Olay night cream. That’s the extent of beauty knowledge passed down from mother to daughter. My mother is a natural babe so that minimal routine served her well. It’s all she needed. Not to be too unkind to my younger self, but suffice it to say that I required a bit more assistance than that.) Long ago my mom upgraded to hot rollers. The problem with rollers of any kind is that I never learned how to roll my own, so to speak. My mom always rolled for me which she gladly did for just about every special occasion from this third grade class photo up to my senior prom and even some very recent book signings when I didn’t want to shell out for a blowout. The downside to putting mom in charge of all my good hair days is that I’m 36 years old and DON’T KNOW HOW TO STYLE MY OWN HAIR. If you ever see me and my hair is styled in any way but a ponytail or a sloppy bun I DIDN’T DO IT. I’m a capable person in many ways but styling my own hair isn’t one of them.

Tags: (retro)photo Friday, 1982

This is supposed to be (retro)photo Friday #1

Friday, January 8th, 2010

But as you can see* the picture didn’t upload properly. The World’s Greatest Webmaster has been trying to fix it all week. (Apparently it’s a WordPress problem, not a MegMessedUp problem, as is often the case when it comes to things technological.) So the general idea is that I’ll upload random pictures from my youth and write a little about them. I think I’ll do this on Fridays because I like the alliterative flow of the words (retro)photo Fridays and also because I hope I’ll get enough writing done on BUMPED at the end of each work week that I’ll be able to take time out to do this without feeling like I’m screwing myself priority-wise.

So this is me at eight years old, tap dancing my heart out in my final recital for Miss Nonie’s School of Dance which I attended for four years even though I wasn’t very graceful or flexible. My only misgiving about dropping out of Miss Nonie’s School of Dance to take voice lessons was that I wouldn’t have a socially acceptable excuse for tarting-up like an underage can can dancer anymore. Believe me, I’m grossed out by the objectification of little girls on Toddlers & Tiaras and the like. But a tiny part of me sort of understands the appeal of getting all glitzed and glammmed because I LOVED this costume. LOVE LOVE LOVED it. I loved the green sequined bustle, I loved the pink marabou feather trim, I loved the pink satinesque top hat and silver shoes and THE WHOLE TACKY SPLENDOR of it. Seriously, if I could have worn this costume to school every day I would have, though my mom most certainly would have made me wear a turtleneck underneath as she always did with all my Halloween costumes but that’s another post for another day. One big difference (and there are MANY) between me and the Painted Babies and Living Dolls  (or then and now) is that these recitals weren’t about trying to be sexy (I didn’t know what that word even was at eight years old) it was all about SHOWBIZ. And I loved every sparkly, shuffle-ball-changing second I was on stage. If I sucked, I certainly didn’t know it.

I mean, just look at the saucy angle of my top hat.

*You can see this photo in all its sparkly glory, here. I hope this issue will be resolved by next week.

Tags: (retro)photo Friday, 1981