nostalgic tuesday

Here's me in my debs dress. Over-foundationed, to say the least :) though the vampire eyes are the camera's fault not mine.

There are three stories I remember about this. The first is that it cost more to make than my father was happy about but when I had the final fitting, I called my father (the only person in the house) to come see, and he stood at the bottom of the stairs and looked up and me and said 'see, you look so much better in that than the scruffy stuff you normally wear'. Well, that's what £300 old Irish pound's worth of black velvet formal wear will do for a girl. Sigh.

Then at the actual party, a waitress dropped a tray full of vegetable soup on the ground and splashed it all over the skirt of the dress. And then I somehow upended a pint of Guinness onto it, and my date looked at me in fear and terror and said 'are you ok?' in a hushed and frightened voice. Actually I once wore it at a party in college and set myself on fire in it. Is it cursed?

Thankfully, the last memory (which came after the Guinnes but before the fire) is a happier one, but I will refrain from sharing it here, because it's dorty.

Halloween 1997. Where did my eyes disappear to? Cartoon eyes! There's a nicer one of me and Axel, dressed as a pirate, which would officially make me his lass, I suppose, but I can't find it. No idea why.

Note my jingle necklace, that I wore day in and out. I loved it.

If anyone has a teenage girl who doesn't like herself, force her to stand in front of the mirror and shout: it doesn't matter what you think!! You're enrobed in Youth! Youth!! Appreciate it now, before it's too late!! Look how big your eyes are! How sweet and round your face! Aghghghgh!

Then I suppose you go do the same for yourself, quick, before you're sixty. And if you're reading this and you're sixty, well, your eighty year old self will tell you the same.