Homely

Tonight two deer crossed my path on my drive home. Is that a sign or something? It's like a reminder of mortality, or of the suicidal nature of deer.

The mysterious form crossing the road's center barrier was a small visual phenomenon - how the parts of the deer's body lit by my car turned from an alien organic shape into a recognizable form as it moved and different parts came to the light.

Have I ever told you I had a rather quirky friend visit my house and he (being rather ashamed of his large house) found my house to be perfect in size, just enough to fulfill needs, located in a nice neighborhood, and above all, homely.

Yes, homely.

I was going to let it go but he kept using it and eventually I had to let him know that the word homely means ugly and suggest that maybe he's actually looking for the word "homey." There was a third friend there and she helped. In spite of the power of numbers, he didn't really believe us.

Tonight, I was to attend a makeup class along with classmates from my beauty school. It was definitely an occasion to dress up.

I considered wearing black, but tossed my wrinkled black skirt to the side with not a little disgust. If I had a choice, I was going out in color.

I arrived at the location of the event, which was not at the beauty school and not during school hours or on a school day, in a hot pink dress with turquoise tights and cardigan, a light pink trench coat, and, as a nod to the gross idiocy of the cosmetology must-wear-black policy which I follow, black shoes and a gray scale scarf.

Everyone else was wearing black.

All thirty of them.

My teacher thinly veils her revulsion to my outfit with a honey-thick smile as I ask her, is this a wear-black event? And she nods.  The girls around her half-smile and nod along, staring and wondering at what a grave sin I had committed. They are also shocked that I have that much color in my closet and that I would wear that color combination out of the house.

I try to make conversation with some other girls while waiting for the start.

Not successful. I joke about my outfit and this is one girl's response, "well, when you're going to a pulse event, the smartest thing to do is-"

-and this is my favorite part-

-another girl walks up who has in no way been a part of our previous conversation and says smugly-

"Wear black [because I'm the fucking queen of England and I always know what to do and I never make mistakes and it is my divinely appointed job to point out the mistakes of others even if it requires me to eavesdrop on and interrupt people's conversations to do so]."

Bitch.

I say to someone, "heh heh, well at least I'm wearing black shoes and a scarf with some black in it!"

Reply: (drily and with some hatred and superiority) "Because OBVIOUSLY that's what you're wearing and not purple tights, a pink dress, and a turquoise sweater."

Thank you VERY much, I know what I am wearing. I got dressed with the lights on.

And my tights are NOT purple.

I see shows and read stories about people who come to parties and events overdressed or underdressed or dressed plain wrong. And I always got frustrated when those people got embarrassed because really, they just didn't get the memo and they should be proud of themselves and rock their style, right? I would never be like them!

But tonight I was out into that very situation and I became the ashamed character who wanted to sink into the wall. I pointed my outfit out to others in order to seek some sort of approval or forgiveness. I wanted to go home.

I listened to Max McClean reading the book of Revelation on the drive to the class. It was more of an emotional experience than I expected. I almost cried at one point, where God spreads his tent over the people who went through the tribulation and wipes away all of their tears.

I also read magazines today.

The salon at my beauty school needs magazines that aren't from last year and that aren't missing pages. I think I'm going to donate some.

I know someone who thinks the mags are just there so people can get haircut inspiration, but I'm pretty sure I've seen clients reading them.

Do you kind of get a double picture when I use the word client? Like, "I'm taking a late lunch; I have a client at 11:30" - it often makes me think of another profession. When I think of it I use the word guest.

But the other word is more thrilling and mysterious, no?