My only glamorous moment.

I love that my daughter Melina is doing Illustration Friday, too. It feels like we're doing parallel play - just separated by a few hundred miles.

After I saw her picture, I emailed to say I was sorry I never helped her much with the "girlie thing" when she was growing up. Moms are supposed to take their daughters shopping for frilly stuff. Many of the Illo Friday participants submitted pictures of their mothers, saying "to me, my mother was the most glamorous woman in the world."

But - with the exception of my OWN mother, who did wear makeup and pretty dresses - I come from a line of women who wear ratty clothes and build things in the backyard.

Her picture also reminded me of this pitiful story...

A few weeks after I met my last boyfriend in 2001 - I'm beginning to suspect he was, indeed, the last one - we very uncharacteristically went shopping. It was mid December and I was excited and nervous about going with him to the New Year's Eve party he'd been invited to.

I was imagining a glamorous party! So while he was browsing calmly through large piles of plaid shirts, I went off to the Girlie Department and tried on an amazing dress. It was grey satin, floor length, with a tight bodice and spaghetti straps and a full skirt. It was the most elegant thing I've ever put on my body, and it actually looked good! I'd never had a dress like that!

I knew it would not, let's say, get a lot of wear, but it was beautiful (and on sale) and I loved it.

When I plucked up my nerve and left the dressing room and swished (it made a lovely swishing sound when I walked) all the way over to the Men's Department and got him to look up from the pile of plaid shirts to look at it, all he said was, "Well, that wouldn't be very practical."

He was right, of course. And his friends (who had young children) were not exactly dressed up at the party.

But I was crushed. It was my last glamorous moment. Ever since, then it's been ratty sweatshirts all the way.

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